Huang Yujie: Taiwan Contemporary Art Time-travel Series

This episode of program is inspired by Huang Yujie’s first documentary exhibition at TheCube 7F “Subterranean—Taiwanese Art Collectives 1980-2000: Taipei Episode“, which presents a twenty years documentary archive of art collectives and spatial transformations in Taipei. The exhibition set off with a question: “If you could revive an event in the Taiwanese contemporary art, which one would you choose? It is an attempt to write a contemporary Taiwanese time-travel series through the invited researchers, artists and curators.

The past has never been one-dimensional, it is just that for the time being we cannot physically be in both places simultaneously, we cannot choose one path and then experience the landscape of another. If resurgence means to revive and to give us the opportunity to choose again, then is there opportunity to revisit the past through reviving art events, and then to renew a different perspective on history after intervening it?

Episode 1: The grass is not small (Ft. Tsai Ming-Jiun)
In this episode of the program, academia researcher Tsai Ming-Jiun is invited to share about the saga of the Fine Arts Department at the Chinese Culture University in 1995, which she would like to revisit. In this episode, Tsai, through her own background and work experience as a starting point, discusses how the students’ independent learning outside of the system of the institution shifted it in a different direction, reflecting not only the power structure within the institution, but also the overall social atmosphere and ideology at the time. By revisiting the details of the CCU saga with Tsai, let us listen to her thoughts on contemporary art education and creation in Taiwan today, and reflect on the meaning of art in society.

 

Episode 2: The Booming Outside of the White Cube (ft. Lu Pei-Yi)
In the second episode of Taiwanese Contemporary Art Time-travel Series, we return to the Tamsui River in 1994. This episode features researcher Lu Pei-Yi, who talks about her desire to return to the 1994 Taipei County art exhibition “Environmental Art” and extending to “The Rising on the Tamsui River” in 1995. “How did the concept/exhibition of ‘site-specific’ develop within the contemporary art scene in Taiwan? What happened to the polluted Tamsui River back then? Why was this exhibition such a pivotal art event for Lu Pei-yi, who has been researching on site-specific art for a long time? In this program, Lu also touches on the restrictions and inevitable loss of the historical archives in the process of revisiting them.

Episode 3: Exhibition or Concept? (Ft. Chen Hsi)
In this episode of Taiwan contemporary art time-travel series, let us travel back in time to the galleries of Taiwan in the 1980s with the senior editor of Art Emperor, Chen Hsi. With a deep understanding on the history of gallery exhibitions in Taiwan, Chen brings us a special solo exhibition of an artist, Hsiung Ping-Ming’s “An Exhibition’s Concept – or Conceptual Exhibition”, which took place at the Lion Art Gallery. How did a veteran artist, almost 60 years old, organize himself through a solo exhibition and raise many questions about the relationship between art making and exhibition, and how did he wanted the audience to get to know him through the exhibition? And how does Chen, who writes art criticism for exhibitions, rethink exhibitions and curation through this art event?

Producer: Huang Yujie
Huang Yujie currently lives and works in Taipei. Her research interests revolve primarily around the exhibition/curatorial history of contemporary art and the development of new media art in Taiwan. She used to be the executive producer of Documentaries of Distinguished Taiwanese Artists and a coordinator for several research and museum projects and currently works as a project manager for TheCube Project Space. She was also the co-curator of the group exhibition Aerobraking (2017). Her articles are widely published among various magazines and online platforms, such as ArtistCLABO, and Museology Quarterly.