On the Verge of Fiction
On the Verge of Fiction
2019.01.18~2019.04.07
09:00 - 17:00
1F, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts. TNUA
About the Exhibition
On the Verge of Fiction ​features young and emerging artists from Japan and Taiwan and aims to contribute to the cross-cultural exchange between Japan and Taiwan and current discussions concerning the historical perceptions of the two countries. The exhibiting artists play out various fictions pertinent to memory, history, landscape, and everyday life. Contemporary art practice becomes a means to interrogate fictionality in our living world, a kind which is imposed as a system of social governance.

In his book ​Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind ​historian Yuval Noah Harari claims that human civilization results from a cognitive evolution in 70,000BC that enabled the capacity for ‘fiction’ – what he describes as imagined reality and lying. Fiction is expressed in mythology and religion and allows for large numbers of people to cooperate. According to Harari, this distinctive ability of using fiction to form tribes and nations culminated in civilization. In this respect, what we perceive is formed by fictionality, and the reality surrounding us involves many fictional aspects. Despite a number of sensational and sweeping statements Harari makes about human history, his view of human behaviour in relation to fiction is a useful starting point for an exhibition that seeks to explore social geography, political and cultural history, and contemporary society in the global context.

Harari’s notion of fiction as a big narrative that governs a nation can be epitomised by the history of Taiwan and the economy of Japan. In Taiwan, democracy and freedom of expression was achieved after the long history of Japanese rule and the martial law enforced by the local government of Taiwan. Through the historical phases from colonial period to democracy, Taiwanese people experienced the instability of constantly changing social conditions. This can be compared to Harari’s view of fiction for social governance. Taiwan’s political climate under the current influence of the People’s Republic of China unmistakably raises issues concerning the country’s regional identity and international relations. Some of the Taiwanese exhibiting artists respond to this situation by exploring oral history and collective memory.

In Japan, there is a tendency to prioritize economic growth alongside the innovation of technology and financial engineering. The Japanese government actively promotes their products as the brand ‘Cool Japan’ to compete in the international market. However, the Great Tohoku Earthquake in 2011 revealed the side effects of capitalist production. Among other things, the myth of safety regarding nuclear power generation turned out to be full of fraud and hypocrisy: the nuclear power station in Fukushima was underwritten with huge subsidies from the government for the purpose of supporting the expansion of Tokyo. The fiction behind economic growth – the myth of ‘safety’ that allowed for the multiplication of nuclear power stations in Japan – was forced on rural areas such as Fukushima which now suffers the tragic consequences of radioactive contamination. Perhaps it’s not surprising that so many Japanese artists have focused on this event in the years since the Fukushima disaster.

In response to such big fictions in relation to social ideology and capitalism, the artists present differing fictions from their subjective standpoints, working closer to the Latin etymology of fiction ‘fictiō’meaning ‘forming’ and ‘feigning.’ Some artists prompt us to contemplate the being and non-being of the subject in question. In so doing, their work reveals the ordinary and real from different perspectives, which in turn provides us with a means to criticise and deconstruct social fictionality. Other artists distance themselves from reality as formed by social fictionality, imposed as it is on our humanity. The exhibition as a whole demonstrates both social and subjective fictions through mediums, and reframes ‘here’ and ‘now’ in differing perspectives in these ways:

1.Representing ‘here’ and ‘now’ by using fiction.
2.Hypothetically escaping or transcending from ‘now’ to past or future.
3.Hypothetically escaping or transcending from ‘here’ to a different place.

In this show, fiction straddles reality and vice versa, as if gazing at the tide on the beach. The exhibition explores the themes of hypothetical escaping, history and memory, everyday fictionality, speaking bodies and changing fiction. The types of exhibited artworks range from painting, sculpture, video and performance to installation. Artistic concerns, including oral history, collective memory, everyday life and the flux of our consciousness, are brought together to create dialogues that speak pertinently of our current condition and the times we are living in. Viewers are invited to unpack stories, envisage landscape ‘on the verge of fiction,’ and reconsider the historical perceptions of Japan and Taiwan.

Artists:
Atsuko Nakamura, Chen Fei-Hao, Chen Ting-Chun, Chen I-Chun, Chou Tai-Chun, Haruko Sasakawa, Joyce Ho, Kenta Kawagoe, Li Cheng-Liang, Taku Hisamura, Teppei Yamada w/z Yuta Ogawa, Yuriko Sasaoka

Program Planner: Ho Yu-Kuan
Curator: Hayato Fujioka
Co-curator: Huang Pei-Wei
Lighting Designer: Tsai Min-Hau
Carpentry Executor: Cheng An-Shun
Transportation: JC Art Engineering Co., Ltd.

Special Thanks
Mabel Wang, Hsu Fong-Ray, Lee I-Hua, Tsai Kuen-Lin, Chen I-Chun, André Chan, Sayuri Fujiwara, Tsukasa Doi, Takafumi Kageyama, Alison Green, Audrey Thomas-Hayes
About the Exhibition
On the Verge of Fiction ​features young and emerging artists from Japan and Taiwan and aims to contribute to the cross-cultural exchange between Japan and Taiwan and current discussions concerning the historical perceptions of the two countries. The exhibiting artists play out various fictions pertinent to memory, history, landscape, and everyday life. Contemporary art practice becomes a means to interrogate fictionality in our living world, a kind which is imposed as a system of social governance.

In his book ​Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind ​historian Yuval Noah Harari claims that human civilization results from a cognitive evolution in 70,000BC that enabled the capacity for ‘fiction’ – what he describes as imagined reality and lying. Fiction is expressed in mythology and religion and allows for large numbers of people to cooperate. According to Harari, this distinctive ability of using fiction to form tribes and nations culminated in civilization. In this respect, what we perceive is formed by fictionality, and the reality surrounding us involves many fictional aspects. Despite a number of sensational and sweeping statements Harari makes about human history, his view of human behaviour in relation to fiction is a useful starting point for an exhibition that seeks to explore social geography, political and cultural history, and contemporary society in the global context.

Harari’s notion of fiction as a big narrative that governs a nation can be epitomised by the history of Taiwan and the economy of Japan. In Taiwan, democracy and freedom of expression was achieved after the long history of Japanese rule and the martial law enforced by the local government of Taiwan. Through the historical phases from colonial period to democracy, Taiwanese people experienced the instability of constantly changing social conditions. This can be compared to Harari’s view of fiction for social governance. Taiwan’s political climate under the current influence of the People’s Republic of China unmistakably raises issues concerning the country’s regional identity and international relations. Some of the Taiwanese exhibiting artists respond to this situation by exploring oral history and collective memory.

In Japan, there is a tendency to prioritize economic growth alongside the innovation of technology and financial engineering. The Japanese government actively promotes their products as the brand ‘Cool Japan’ to compete in the international market. However, the Great Tohoku Earthquake in 2011 revealed the side effects of capitalist production. Among other things, the myth of safety regarding nuclear power generation turned out to be full of fraud and hypocrisy: the nuclear power station in Fukushima was underwritten with huge subsidies from the government for the purpose of supporting the expansion of Tokyo. The fiction behind economic growth – the myth of ‘safety’ that allowed for the multiplication of nuclear power stations in Japan – was forced on rural areas such as Fukushima which now suffers the tragic consequences of radioactive contamination. Perhaps it’s not surprising that so many Japanese artists have focused on this event in the years since the Fukushima disaster.

In response to such big fictions in relation to social ideology and capitalism, the artists present differing fictions from their subjective standpoints, working closer to the Latin etymology of fiction ‘fictiō’meaning ‘forming’ and ‘feigning.’ Some artists prompt us to contemplate the being and non-being of the subject in question. In so doing, their work reveals the ordinary and real from different perspectives, which in turn provides us with a means to criticise and deconstruct social fictionality. Other artists distance themselves from reality as formed by social fictionality, imposed as it is on our humanity. The exhibition as a whole demonstrates both social and subjective fictions through mediums, and reframes ‘here’ and ‘now’ in differing perspectives in these ways:

1.Representing ‘here’ and ‘now’ by using fiction.
2.Hypothetically escaping or transcending from ‘now’ to past or future.
3.Hypothetically escaping or transcending from ‘here’ to a different place.

In this show, fiction straddles reality and vice versa, as if gazing at the tide on the beach. The exhibition explores the themes of hypothetical escaping, history and memory, everyday fictionality, speaking bodies and changing fiction. The types of exhibited artworks range from painting, sculpture, video and performance to installation. Artistic concerns, including oral history, collective memory, everyday life and the flux of our consciousness, are brought together to create dialogues that speak pertinently of our current condition and the times we are living in. Viewers are invited to unpack stories, envisage landscape ‘on the verge of fiction,’ and reconsider the historical perceptions of Japan and Taiwan.

Artists:
Atsuko Nakamura, Chen Fei-Hao, Chen Ting-Chun, Chen I-Chun, Chou Tai-Chun, Haruko Sasakawa, Joyce Ho, Kenta Kawagoe, Li Cheng-Liang, Taku Hisamura, Teppei Yamada w/z Yuta Ogawa, Yuriko Sasaoka

Program Planner: Ho Yu-Kuan
Curator: Hayato Fujioka
Co-curator: Huang Pei-Wei
Lighting Designer: Tsai Min-Hau
Carpentry Executor: Cheng An-Shun
Transportation: JC Art Engineering Co., Ltd.

Special Thanks
Mabel Wang, Hsu Fong-Ray, Lee I-Hua, Tsai Kuen-Lin, Chen I-Chun, André Chan, Sayuri Fujiwara, Tsukasa Doi, Takafumi Kageyama, Alison Green, Audrey Thomas-Hayes
Artists
中村厚子
Atsuko Nakamura

Allegory of Cave
salt, wire, strings, the book 'Republic' by Plato / 15x20x15 cm / 2011~

Building upon her former architectural study at university, Atsuko Nakamura poses questions about urbanization and the control it exerts upon nature, thus her work explores man's relationship to nature. The work makes visible the invisible energy, memory and time, from the past to future of the place. Nakamura merges ‘her creation’ and ‘Nature's creation’ using natural materials such as driftwood, salt, and water, or phenomena such as sea waves and temperature, creating interventions into architectural space. The work, which is a sensory experience, explores spiritual connections with nature and what nature ‘is’ contemporarily.

-

陳飛豪
Chen Fei-Hao

Love Suicide at Snow Melting Train: New Shikoku Pilgrimage in Taipei
single-channel video, historical archive / dimensions variable / 2017

Love Suicide at Snow Melting Train is based on a prostitute's lovesuicide in Taipei, under the period of Japanese rule, as a counterpoint to the classical Japanese literatureLove Suicide at Sonesaki. The first part of this work's text is titled The Tour of Guanyin Temples, set in Sonesaki (Osaka), where the love-suicide unfolds through the eyes of the main female character, Ohatsu. As an extension of a previous single-channel video work, this project explores the thematic of the pilgrimage as it existed in the past: here, the New Shikoku Pilgrimage in Taipei is told through the eyes of Naruto, the female main character, in the form of prose poem, video and historical archival material.

-

陳亭君
Chen Ting-Chun

The Border-room
oil on canvas / 151x151 x 3.2cm / 2018

Chen Ting-Chun explores the narrativity of space and the relationship between reality and image. An object in a space and the way it was placed reveal the trace, memories and past of a person. Objects, by gathering in a group, form another scene. With images from reality, the artist re-creates special spaces and varied objects. Through deconstruction of pictures, appropriation of pieces, collage and association, emotions were left as marks and afterimages on the canvas. Eventually, all the existing, whether they seem totally different or closely connected, would become part of a larger whole.

-

陳依純
Chen I-Chun

ShuiYuan Lin Legend 1-5
moving image / 5mins each / 2013 - 2018

Chen I-Chun was raised by his grandparents. From the limited perspective of one who was too young to speak at the time, Shui Yuan Lin Legend observes the Feng Shui Master who was feared and admired by the villagers. Due to the inability to speak and take notes, the artist could only use the perspective of a young child in an attempt to reproduce the tales of her grandfather, illustrating her vision and emotions through vibrant cartoonish colors.This folk-style legend tells the story of General Su Ay-guai, who served as a police officer in Yunlin County during Emperor Guangxu’s rule of the Qing Dynasty, who fights bandits in the mountains in Linyipu (Zhushan), Nantou. After 36 officers were killed near the Fanzi Well outside of Xin Zhuang Village, the villagers buried General Su and his troops in Zhongyi Tomb.

-

周代焌
Chou Tai-Chun

Beyond the Mountains–The Others
mixed media / dimensions variable / 2018

Chou's work examines our relationship to the land across generations. Chou expresses concern for our current relationship to the natural environment, imagining a distinct, future landscape where humans and nature co-exist harmoniously. Chou explores various human activities at different contexts in time, and oscillating from a horizontal to vertical axis.

-

笹川治子
Haruko Sasakawa

Recollection–Human Torpedo
mixed media / dimensions variable / 2015

Through her practice, HarukoSasakawa examines images and representations of ‘war.’ In this context, she explores notions of propaganda, past interpretations of war artists’ work and the influence of this upon societies past. Sasakawa unpicks past occurrences and applies these reflections to an analysis of contemporary society.
何采柔
Joyce Ho

Dream About Me
sculpture / 48 x 48 x 165 cm / 2017

Joyce Ho is an interdisciplinary artist who practices in painting, sculpture, installation and performance. In her works, she explores daily rituals, the deconstruction of movement and the fluid relationship between light and shadow. Joyce is interested in the tension between dreams and reality. Her works simultaneously envelop the audience while also confronting them, destabilizing the viewers' traditional views and modes of perception.

-

川越健太
Kenta Kawagoe

Drapes 7
inkjet print, mounted on paper box by staple / 68 x 84 x 11 cm / 2018

Beginning with the logic and processes of structure and time discovered through working with photography, Kawagoe's artistic methodology is an attempt to interrogate the characteristics of painting and sculpture. Through practicing in the mediums of painting and sculpture whilst interpreting them, Kawagoe reveals their commensurability, or matrix. He aims to reinterpret these mediums as instruments, to create a new unity in his work.

-

李承亮
Li Cheng-Liang

The Wannian Station on the Road–Small Moving Room
mixed media / dimensions variable / 2017

The Wannian Station on the Road is set in a fictional place that Li Cheng-Liang has created by detaching from reality - deconstructing the one-sided experiences of his personal life to generate an alchemistic, unmanned theater. Li invited visitors to roam around inside this imaginative space. Enter this small room and experience Li's everyday life - work, sleep, or contemplate the meaning of life.

-

久村卓
Taku Hisamura

PLUS_POLO RALPH LAUREN_sky blue hat
embroidery on hat / dimensions variable / 2018

Hisamura's work draws attention to the various states of mundane features such as walls, floors, ceilings, or pedestals - the kinds of structures that are taken for granted. He manipulates, tweaks and places these elements so that they resonate with a new environment. In doing so, he invites audiences to perceive and experience these ‘objects’ in a different spatial context.

-

山田哲平 w/z 小川優太
Teppei Yamada w/z Yuta Ogawa

Dressing
mixed media (sound installation) / dimensions variable / 2018

Yamada's work stems from his experience as a child actor, constantly disguising and concealing his true self, which has shaped his current perspective of production. He is interested in the idea that conversations with others (not just humans) are a re-expressing of oneself in the context of those relationships, which in turn creates the world around us, like Martin Heidegger's “In-der-Welt-sein.” For recent works, Yamada has used archival methods to collect memories and to ‘read’ the pulse of humanity - observing patterns in natural phenomena and history, exploring the similarities between these and our human society. Yamada observes the construction and deconstruction of modern society, permanence and change and commonality and difference from various perspectives.

-

笹岡由梨子
Yuriko Sasaoka

I Hope You Sleep Well
video, sound, aluminum, light bulb / 5 min 1 sec / 2018

With her original approach to making ‘video based on painting’ Yuriko Sasaoka explores the interface between painting and video, by creating works that suggest ‘touches’ similar to brushstrokes. Her technique combines footage of faces and hands, incorporated into low-tech videos of puppet shows with stage assistants dressed in black, reminiscent of behind-the-scenes glimpses of ‘special effects.’ A soundtrack of suitably retro computer noise invites the viewer to experience complex structures and stories in a unique world that is paradoxically nostalgic, yet never seen before.
Artists
中村厚子
Atsuko Nakamura

Allegory of Cave
salt, wire, strings, the book 'Republic' by Plato / 15x20x15 cm / 2011~

Building upon her former architectural study at university, Atsuko Nakamura poses questions about urbanization and the control it exerts upon nature, thus her work explores man's relationship to nature. The work makes visible the invisible energy, memory and time, from the past to future of the place. Nakamura merges ‘her creation’ and ‘Nature's creation’ using natural materials such as driftwood, salt, and water, or phenomena such as sea waves and temperature, creating interventions into architectural space. The work, which is a sensory experience, explores spiritual connections with nature and what nature ‘is’ contemporarily.

-

陳飛豪
Chen Fei-Hao

Love Suicide at Snow Melting Train: New Shikoku Pilgrimage in Taipei
single-channel video, historical archive / dimensions variable / 2017

Love Suicide at Snow Melting Train is based on a prostitute's lovesuicide in Taipei, under the period of Japanese rule, as a counterpoint to the classical Japanese literatureLove Suicide at Sonesaki. The first part of this work's text is titled The Tour of Guanyin Temples, set in Sonesaki (Osaka), where the love-suicide unfolds through the eyes of the main female character, Ohatsu. As an extension of a previous single-channel video work, this project explores the thematic of the pilgrimage as it existed in the past: here, the New Shikoku Pilgrimage in Taipei is told through the eyes of Naruto, the female main character, in the form of prose poem, video and historical archival material.

-

陳亭君
Chen Ting-Chun

The Border-room
oil on canvas / 151x151 x 3.2cm / 2018

Chen Ting-Chun explores the narrativity of space and the relationship between reality and image. An object in a space and the way it was placed reveal the trace, memories and past of a person. Objects, by gathering in a group, form another scene. With images from reality, the artist re-creates special spaces and varied objects. Through deconstruction of pictures, appropriation of pieces, collage and association, emotions were left as marks and afterimages on the canvas. Eventually, all the existing, whether they seem totally different or closely connected, would become part of a larger whole.

-

陳依純
Chen I-Chun

ShuiYuan Lin Legend 1-5
moving image / 5mins each / 2013 - 2018

Chen I-Chun was raised by his grandparents. From the limited perspective of one who was too young to speak at the time, Shui Yuan Lin Legend observes the Feng Shui Master who was feared and admired by the villagers. Due to the inability to speak and take notes, the artist could only use the perspective of a young child in an attempt to reproduce the tales of her grandfather, illustrating her vision and emotions through vibrant cartoonish colors.This folk-style legend tells the story of General Su Ay-guai, who served as a police officer in Yunlin County during Emperor Guangxu’s rule of the Qing Dynasty, who fights bandits in the mountains in Linyipu (Zhushan), Nantou. After 36 officers were killed near the Fanzi Well outside of Xin Zhuang Village, the villagers buried General Su and his troops in Zhongyi Tomb.

-

周代焌
Chou Tai-Chun

Beyond the Mountains–The Others
mixed media / dimensions variable / 2018

Chou's work examines our relationship to the land across generations. Chou expresses concern for our current relationship to the natural environment, imagining a distinct, future landscape where humans and nature co-exist harmoniously. Chou explores various human activities at different contexts in time, and oscillating from a horizontal to vertical axis.

-

笹川治子
Haruko Sasakawa

Recollection–Human Torpedo
mixed media / dimensions variable / 2015

Through her practice, HarukoSasakawa examines images and representations of ‘war.’ In this context, she explores notions of propaganda, past interpretations of war artists’ work and the influence of this upon societies past. Sasakawa unpicks past occurrences and applies these reflections to an analysis of contemporary society.
何采柔
Joyce Ho

Dream About Me
sculpture / 48 x 48 x 165 cm / 2017

Joyce Ho is an interdisciplinary artist who practices in painting, sculpture, installation and performance. In her works, she explores daily rituals, the deconstruction of movement and the fluid relationship between light and shadow. Joyce is interested in the tension between dreams and reality. Her works simultaneously envelop the audience while also confronting them, destabilizing the viewers' traditional views and modes of perception.

-

川越健太
Kenta Kawagoe

Drapes 7
inkjet print, mounted on paper box by staple / 68 x 84 x 11 cm / 2018

Beginning with the logic and processes of structure and time discovered through working with photography, Kawagoe's artistic methodology is an attempt to interrogate the characteristics of painting and sculpture. Through practicing in the mediums of painting and sculpture whilst interpreting them, Kawagoe reveals their commensurability, or matrix. He aims to reinterpret these mediums as instruments, to create a new unity in his work.

-

李承亮
Li Cheng-Liang

The Wannian Station on the Road–Small Moving Room
mixed media / dimensions variable / 2017

The Wannian Station on the Road is set in a fictional place that Li Cheng-Liang has created by detaching from reality - deconstructing the one-sided experiences of his personal life to generate an alchemistic, unmanned theater. Li invited visitors to roam around inside this imaginative space. Enter this small room and experience Li's everyday life - work, sleep, or contemplate the meaning of life.

-

久村卓
Taku Hisamura

PLUS_POLO RALPH LAUREN_sky blue hat
embroidery on hat / dimensions variable / 2018

Hisamura's work draws attention to the various states of mundane features such as walls, floors, ceilings, or pedestals - the kinds of structures that are taken for granted. He manipulates, tweaks and places these elements so that they resonate with a new environment. In doing so, he invites audiences to perceive and experience these ‘objects’ in a different spatial context.

-

山田哲平 w/z 小川優太
Teppei Yamada w/z Yuta Ogawa

Dressing
mixed media (sound installation) / dimensions variable / 2018

Yamada's work stems from his experience as a child actor, constantly disguising and concealing his true self, which has shaped his current perspective of production. He is interested in the idea that conversations with others (not just humans) are a re-expressing of oneself in the context of those relationships, which in turn creates the world around us, like Martin Heidegger's “In-der-Welt-sein.” For recent works, Yamada has used archival methods to collect memories and to ‘read’ the pulse of humanity - observing patterns in natural phenomena and history, exploring the similarities between these and our human society. Yamada observes the construction and deconstruction of modern society, permanence and change and commonality and difference from various perspectives.

-

笹岡由梨子
Yuriko Sasaoka

I Hope You Sleep Well
video, sound, aluminum, light bulb / 5 min 1 sec / 2018

With her original approach to making ‘video based on painting’ Yuriko Sasaoka explores the interface between painting and video, by creating works that suggest ‘touches’ similar to brushstrokes. Her technique combines footage of faces and hands, incorporated into low-tech videos of puppet shows with stage assistants dressed in black, reminiscent of behind-the-scenes glimpses of ‘special effects.’ A soundtrack of suitably retro computer noise invites the viewer to experience complex structures and stories in a unique world that is paradoxically nostalgic, yet never seen before.
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