Art Taipei two years ago was a horrible experience. Staged at venues including a former brewery, he event had a nice, open feel to it, but regardless of the subtropical climate, the venues weren't air-conditioned. The roofs were leaking, and some of the participating galleries complained and protested (see volume 138). When special guest artist Patricia Piccinini came all the way from Australia to see the show, she realized that images of her works were used for posters and catalogue covers without her permission, she got so upset that she cancelled most of her planned lectures. Ozawa Tsuyoshi reportedly made exactly the same experience when he was invited as a special guest one year earlier. In my view that’s seriously rough behavior that can't be excused with the "easygoing nature of southern nations."
This year, Art Taipei presented itself with an entirely new face. There were a couple of minor problems as it seems, but the fair as a whole was markedly refined. This time it took place at the Taipei World Trade Center, not far from Taipei 101, the city’s tallest skyscraper. A total of 111 galleries including 48 from abroad had set up their booths in the high and spacious venue, and although there are no official figures, the turnover must have been rather good, as the place was crowded with quite a few - primarily local - collectors.
There were two things worth pointing out in particular. The first is the "Art & Tech - Wandering" exhibition. This small-scale media art show staged in a special booth was organized by Art Taipei together with Sean Hu, an independent curator and owner of the art bar "BT", and featured works by the late Nam June Paik, Gary Hill, Jim Campbell, Chen Chieh-jen, and Shaun Gladwell. Due to a minimal budget, the setup was difficult, and eventually the works of Hill and Chen were displayed so that their sounds overlapped and weren't clearly audible. But regardless of such little defects, I think it deserves praise that an exhibition that isn't directly business-oriented could be realized at a commercial art fair. While this is often the case at art fairs in Europe and the USA, it’s still an exceptional feature at similar events in Asia. The fact that it happened in Taipei is surely related to the flowering media art scene in Taiwan.
The second exhibition I'd like to mention is "Made in Taiwan - Young Artist Discovery", introducing the works of eight selected newcomer artists aged 35 or below. Under the sponsorship of the Council for Cultural Affairs, the participants at this small event had their own individual booths. Each of them was probably linked to a gallery, and picking eight from out of 108 applicants was surely also a matter of politics, but for visitors eager to get to know (or recruit) some fresh young talent, it was a highly commendable opportunity. I may be repeating myself here, but there is a value of art that can't be measured in money alone, and that notion is sometimes strong enough to affect the market. I really hope that similar attempts will be made at other events, including for example Art Fair Tokyo.
My aim was of course not to purchase works of art. I was invited by the Art Galleries Association R.O.C., which hosts Art Taipei, to do a public lecture prior to the general opening of the Fair. Based on a special featured in volume 18 of "ART iT" magazine, I chose the title "The floating generation" for my lecture introducing on several visual examples a certain trend among Japanese artists in their 30s or younger. More about this topic you can read in interviews included in the above-mentioned issue and volume 16 of ART iT, as well as in the draft of my speech. Let me just mention that it’s all revolving around four keywords — "white", "shadow", "falling" and "floating". It is my assumption that the number of artworks that fall under one or even all of these four categories has significantly increased since the beginning of the century.
Especially the last attribute, "floating", seems to be specific to art made in Japan, or at least in East Asia, and the question whether in these times it’s to some extent a universal tendency is one of my current matters of concern. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s "Emerald" that was part of the "Space For Your Future" exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo last year, is a kind of "floating" video combining live-action images kept in subdued, nostalgia-evoking colors, and beautifully dancing particles of light made with computer graphics. In my opinion, it’s one piece of evidence that supports my theory.
Further evidence I found on my recent trip to Taiwan. For example, Aki Gallery hosted a solo exhibition of Taipei Art Award winner Chen Wan Jen’s works. Showing on three screens footage of passersby set off colorfully against a white ground, while objects resembling airplanes or missiles cross through the clouds every now and then, the large-scale video installation left a lingering impression. A masterpiece by the up-and-coming 26-year-old, it expressed the aimlessness of the young generation against the backdrop of the current situation of Taiwan as it can't escape the friction with mainland China.
We are living in an uneasy age when the future isn't clearly visible. There exist a number of artists whose works manifest their sensitive response to the signs of the times, and regardless of whether or not we like and accept what we are shown, we will surely come across an increasing number of such artworks in the future.