SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
History, War, and their Betrayers
17 October, 2020 - 23 January, 2021
UP Gallery, Hsinchu, Taiwan
Adam BROOMBERG & Oliver CHANARIN
Ding WU
Chung Hsuan LAN
Curator: Jay Chun-Chieh LAI
歷史、戰爭，與其叛徒
17 October, 2020 - 23 January, 2021
絕版影像館，新竹，台灣
亞當．布倫伯格 & 奧利佛．查納林
吳鼎
藍仲軒
策展人：賴駿杰
View on UP Gallery
17 October, 2020 - 23 January, 2021
UP Gallery, Hsinchu, Taiwan
Adam BROOMBERG & Oliver CHANARIN
Ding WU
Chung Hsuan LAN
Curator: Jay Chun-Chieh LAI
歷史、戰爭，與其叛徒
17 October, 2020 - 23 January, 2021
絕版影像館，新竹，台灣
亞當．布倫伯格 & 奧利佛．查納林
吳鼎
藍仲軒
策展人：賴駿杰
View on UP Gallery
If the writing of history is to be comprehended as simply a linear progression (of events), one might find “war” one of the most prominent and direct factors that affect the development of human history. Wars that were provoked by human occurrences like revolutions, border conflicts, and military coups. In more recent times, historical writing has adopted a new approach. It underscores a historical discourse that centers on locality wherein varieties and multiplicity are highlighted. It also focuses on distinctive culture, habitus as well as ethnic consciousness, and its legacy. Yet, “war” has never ended. It conceals itself and dives even deeper, disguising itself into different forms and shapes the way history is written.
Because of its remarkable liquidity, mobility, and ability to differentiate specific groups of audiences (in art, experimental cinema, documentary, photojournalism, and entertainment), image becomes one of the best tools to expand battlefields. However, the collaboration between image and history is liable to collapse because of their deceptive and devious nature. Image with its illusory power fundamentally contradicts with the logical reasoning in writing. Their mutual exclusiveness dooms their destiny to be the shadow of each other. Yet it also entices constant attempts of the two parties to escape from their fate, hoping to replace their adversary. Such a notion permeates the artistic approach of the three participating artists whose works endeavour to probe into the so-called “escape” and “replacement” and bring forth possibilities.
Lan Chung-Hsuan’s "God, Goddess, and Trinity" (2020) is anti-image or more precisely, iconoclastic. The celebrity Teresa Teng (1953-1995) is portrayed in his work as the goddess, and the way it was articulated (clearly as a sort of apparatus for propaganda) becomes the targeted opponent which the artist Lan provokes to fight against. The goddess is not beautiful anymore, and the appearances of heroes become unrecognisable. The Begonia leaves with the shape of China is the metaphor of the place that is unable to return. Teresa Teng’s face is covered by a Latin alphabet θ which means “death” in Ancient Greece and Rome. The alphabet assembled by red stamps imbued the image with an apparent ominous connotation. The “death” presented in the work, however, is somehow a stage in a cycle that revolves and ultimately reaches “birth”. The cycle is a typical representation of the trinity of Party/Government/Religion that serves as a national belief. In this sense, “death“ has become “immortality”.
This exhibition aims not to discern and explore any specific (history of) war by these three groups of artists, nor is it trying to touch upon issues concerning the “image of war and its horror”. The title, however, reveals the potential subject of knowledge which is historical writing and image-making, their various contradictory relationships with ideologies, and how it can be seen as an expansion of the word/image problem. The artists share common interests and intentions in historical writing with a versatile display of forms, methods, and routes. The exhibition begins with the artist duo presenting to us the absence (death) of the written and the ones with the power of writing history. It then introduced to us Lan’s works that delineate the immortal historical cycle through the concept of trinity. The audience would then find themselves being brought to the sensational space set up by the artist Wu Ding where ideologies of three groups of artists are enclosed within. The exhibition tries to dissolve and transform the birth and death of history, which is perfectly articulated in Wu’s video Meditation by the turbid gas floating between the images and words. To discuss world war and human history undoubtedly requires more than three groups of artists and works, yet the exhibition draws a topological map by which the audiences can get a glimpse of what Taiwan faces now, in face of the current situation between the U.S and China in the post-Cold War era.
當代看似進步與平和，但「戰爭」並沒有因此消失，很多時候它以更隱微與潛在的形貌，持續地影響著歷史書寫的面向。有著輕便、流動力強等因素，影像因此成為最好的戰場工具之一。然，影像與歷史的合作通常是虛妄與狡狎的，魔幻的影像與邏輯的書寫本質上相互衝突，只能做為彼此的陰影，但卻又經常翻身逃逸且試圖取代對方。此展三位藝術家們所致力的正是以不同方式來談論此謂「逃逸」與「翻轉」，而另闢蹊徑。
藍仲軒的《神、女神、三位一體》系列作品也是明顯反圖像的，或者更精確地講，是偶像破壞的（iconoclastic）。女神不美了，英雄的面孔也無法辨識，取而代之的是一張張到不了、回不去的紅色海棠。在古希羅時代被用以象徵、指涉「死亡」的拉丁字母θ，掩蓋了鄧麗君全部面容，畫面充斥著不祥意味。只是，這裡的死亡，是往復循環的，是向死而生的，是一種典型的黨/政/教合一（三位一體）之國家信仰，即「不死（immortal）」。
「歷史書寫」與影像生成，及其同意識形態之間的各種衝突性關係，可被視為一種影像/文字問題（word/image problem）的擴延——而書寫歷史則為在藝術家相異形式、手法與取徑下的共同意圖。以本展來談世界格局的戰爭與歷史，或許薄弱且取樣不足，但它所輻射的是一幅可藉以理解臺灣當下處境的座標圖，特別是在「後冷戰時代」中介於美、中之間的特殊情境。
Because of its remarkable liquidity, mobility, and ability to differentiate specific groups of audiences (in art, experimental cinema, documentary, photojournalism, and entertainment), image becomes one of the best tools to expand battlefields. However, the collaboration between image and history is liable to collapse because of their deceptive and devious nature. Image with its illusory power fundamentally contradicts with the logical reasoning in writing. Their mutual exclusiveness dooms their destiny to be the shadow of each other. Yet it also entices constant attempts of the two parties to escape from their fate, hoping to replace their adversary. Such a notion permeates the artistic approach of the three participating artists whose works endeavour to probe into the so-called “escape” and “replacement” and bring forth possibilities.
Lan Chung-Hsuan’s "God, Goddess, and Trinity" (2020) is anti-image or more precisely, iconoclastic. The celebrity Teresa Teng (1953-1995) is portrayed in his work as the goddess, and the way it was articulated (clearly as a sort of apparatus for propaganda) becomes the targeted opponent which the artist Lan provokes to fight against. The goddess is not beautiful anymore, and the appearances of heroes become unrecognisable. The Begonia leaves with the shape of China is the metaphor of the place that is unable to return. Teresa Teng’s face is covered by a Latin alphabet θ which means “death” in Ancient Greece and Rome. The alphabet assembled by red stamps imbued the image with an apparent ominous connotation. The “death” presented in the work, however, is somehow a stage in a cycle that revolves and ultimately reaches “birth”. The cycle is a typical representation of the trinity of Party/Government/Religion that serves as a national belief. In this sense, “death“ has become “immortality”.
This exhibition aims not to discern and explore any specific (history of) war by these three groups of artists, nor is it trying to touch upon issues concerning the “image of war and its horror”. The title, however, reveals the potential subject of knowledge which is historical writing and image-making, their various contradictory relationships with ideologies, and how it can be seen as an expansion of the word/image problem. The artists share common interests and intentions in historical writing with a versatile display of forms, methods, and routes. The exhibition begins with the artist duo presenting to us the absence (death) of the written and the ones with the power of writing history. It then introduced to us Lan’s works that delineate the immortal historical cycle through the concept of trinity. The audience would then find themselves being brought to the sensational space set up by the artist Wu Ding where ideologies of three groups of artists are enclosed within. The exhibition tries to dissolve and transform the birth and death of history, which is perfectly articulated in Wu’s video Meditation by the turbid gas floating between the images and words. To discuss world war and human history undoubtedly requires more than three groups of artists and works, yet the exhibition draws a topological map by which the audiences can get a glimpse of what Taiwan faces now, in face of the current situation between the U.S and China in the post-Cold War era.
當代看似進步與平和，但「戰爭」並沒有因此消失，很多時候它以更隱微與潛在的形貌，持續地影響著歷史書寫的面向。有著輕便、流動力強等因素，影像因此成為最好的戰場工具之一。然，影像與歷史的合作通常是虛妄與狡狎的，魔幻的影像與邏輯的書寫本質上相互衝突，只能做為彼此的陰影，但卻又經常翻身逃逸且試圖取代對方。此展三位藝術家們所致力的正是以不同方式來談論此謂「逃逸」與「翻轉」，而另闢蹊徑。
藍仲軒的《神、女神、三位一體》系列作品也是明顯反圖像的，或者更精確地講，是偶像破壞的（iconoclastic）。女神不美了，英雄的面孔也無法辨識，取而代之的是一張張到不了、回不去的紅色海棠。在古希羅時代被用以象徵、指涉「死亡」的拉丁字母θ，掩蓋了鄧麗君全部面容，畫面充斥著不祥意味。只是，這裡的死亡，是往復循環的，是向死而生的，是一種典型的黨/政/教合一（三位一體）之國家信仰，即「不死（immortal）」。
「歷史書寫」與影像生成，及其同意識形態之間的各種衝突性關係，可被視為一種影像/文字問題（word/image problem）的擴延——而書寫歷史則為在藝術家相異形式、手法與取徑下的共同意圖。以本展來談世界格局的戰爭與歷史，或許薄弱且取樣不足，但它所輻射的是一幅可藉以理解臺灣當下處境的座標圖，特別是在「後冷戰時代」中介於美、中之間的特殊情境。
LAN Chung-Hsuan
A Battlefield is a Whisful Thingking, yet a Stamp is a piece of Paper 戰地是一廂情願，而郵票是一張紙, 2020
Archival inkjet print, vintage stamps
86 x 48 cm each
A Battlefield is a Whisful Thingking, yet a Stamp is a piece of Paper 戰地是一廂情願，而郵票是一張紙, 2020
Archival inkjet print, vintage stamps
86 x 48 cm each
LAN Chung-Hsuan
Trinity 三位一體, 2020
Flags, iron
252 x 243 x 243 cm
Trinity 三位一體, 2020
Flags, iron
252 x 243 x 243 cm
LAN Chung-Hsuan
God 神, 2020
USAF uniform, blood chit replica
154 x 162 cm
God 神, 2020
USAF uniform, blood chit replica
154 x 162 cm
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LAN CHUNG-HSUAN © 2024
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
FEATURES
CURATING
PRESS
TEXT
CV
@lanchunghsuan
[email protected]
LAN CHUNG-HSUAN © 2024