As Taiwan’s representation at the Venice Art Biennale 2024, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum presents the exhibition “Everyday War” by the artist Yuan Goang-Ming. Curated by Abby Chen, Yuan’s project merges video art with a domestic ambiance, reflecting on contemporary life’s challenges and hidden threats. The centerpiece, the exhibition’s eponymous work “Everyday War,” depicts a domestic space transforming amid warplanes, symbolizing the evolving nature of conflict.
Yuan Goang-Ming’s work blurs the line between video art and film, exploring themes like “home” and “uncanny futures”. The artist grew up in Taiwan and studied media art in Germany. In the 1990s he established himself as one of Taiwan’s leading new-media artists. The exhibition at the Palazzo delle Prigioni around the corner of Piazza San Marco features Yuan’s works “Everyday Maneuver”, “The 561st Hour of Occupation”, “What lies Beyond Us?”, “Dwelling”, “Everyday War”, “Prophecy”, and “Flat World”. The show runs until November 24, 2024.
This video provides you with an exhibition walkthrough and interviews with artist Yuan Goang-Ming and curator Abby Chen.
Yuan Goang-Ming: Everyday War. Taiwan in Venice 2024. Collateral Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. Palazzo delle Prigioni, April 18, 2024.
Yuan Goang-Ming’s work blurs the line between video art and film, exploring themes like “home” and “uncanny futures”. The artist grew up in Taiwan and studied media art in Germany. In the 1990s he established himself as one of Taiwan’s leading new-media artists. The exhibition at the Palazzo delle Prigioni around the corner of Piazza San Marco features Yuan’s works “Everyday Maneuver”, “The 561st Hour of Occupation”, “What lies Beyond Us?”, “Dwelling”, “Everyday War”, “Prophecy”, and “Flat World”. The show runs until November 24, 2024.
This video provides you with an exhibition walkthrough and interviews with artist Yuan Goang-Ming and curator Abby Chen.
Yuan Goang-Ming: Everyday War. Taiwan in Venice 2024. Collateral Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. Palazzo delle Prigioni, April 18, 2024.
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00:00 [crowd noise]
00:15 [ambient noise]
00:25 [ambient noise]
00:30 The exhibition focuses on the things of war in daily life and daily life in war
00:38 to symbolize the uncanny tomorrow.
00:42 And the concept of war isn't just about the physical gun power or military conflicts,
00:52 but it's also about pandemic or unequal distribution under the capitalism or climate change and more.
01:07 In fact, we are living in a kind of a state of war in our living.
01:17 And the normalization of conflicts seems to be a regular part of our life.
01:26 [crowd noise]
01:41 The artist Yuan Guangming was born in Taiwan and raised in Taiwan and currently living with his family in Taiwan.
01:50 So he was educated actually in Germany.
01:54 And because at the time he couldn't find a kind of a major or university that specialized in image making with motion pictures,
02:07 so he came to Germany to study.
02:10 And then he started his career as one of the very early video artists and also as a pioneer in Taiwan.
02:20 And I remember seeing his work many years ago and got struck by that,
02:26 but never thought that there's one day that he and I will work together.
02:30 And also that he was born to a family that was part of the result of the World War II,
02:40 particularly the China Civil War, that his dad has to follow the army and to settle in Taiwan,
02:48 but was not able to return to the mainland, to his hometown for decades.
02:55 So that has always been this kind of haunting sort of trauma throughout the family,
03:02 but it becomes more so as the situation in Taiwan continues to escalate.
03:11 And also Yuan Guangming himself has become a father.
03:14 [Background noise]
03:29 There's a new work with the title "Everyday War."
03:33 It's a single channel video with the title "Everyday War" as similar as this exhibition.
03:41 And you can see this video is a room, is a mere single room.
03:50 And then in this room will happen a lot of explosions.
04:03 And to the end, the room will be a ruined place.
04:10 And then, because the video is a seamless loop video, so we'll look to the beginning,
04:17 and the beginning is nothing happened.
04:22 This work actually is a continuation from "Everyday Maneuver,"
04:30 so from "Everyday Maneuver" to "Everyday War."
04:34 And also it's a continuation from "Dwelling," the video installation with the sofa, that piece.
04:43 It's a continuation from "Dwelling" that a metaphor, a home, is no longer a stable concept.
04:54 Because the "Dwelling," this work, is in my solo exhibition with title "The Uncanny Tomorrow" in 2014.
05:06 And if in German, it's "Unheimlich," Morgan, right? "Uncanny," "Unheimlich."
05:14 And "Unheimlich," if we understand through the German, may be easier.
05:21 Because "Unheimlich," just like other English, "unhome."
05:28 So that means the uncanny is related to the home.
05:49 Like I said, I started to get to know his work probably around 2016,
05:54 when there is a large survey show about Taiwan's video art that took place in Taipei.
06:04 That was the first time I think I saw the work, but I didn't really put two and two together,
06:10 because there were quite a few impressive works there.
06:13 And then 2019, I was in Tokyo. I was visiting the Mori Museum,
06:19 and I just stumbled upon the 561 hours of occupation.
06:25 I was completely struck by that.
06:28 I was totally just crying in the exhibition,
06:34 because what it was showing on the screen was 2014, the Sunflower Movement that took place in Taiwan.
06:41 But in my head, I was also thinking about what was happening in Hong Kong
06:45 when the young people also got into the legislative hall.
06:49 But very different destiny.
06:51 One is triumph, victory, and really the material change.
06:59 And then on the other hand, that in Hong Kong,
07:03 it was really very traumatic for many of us watching the event, how it unfolded.
07:10 So at that moment, I was preparing for another exhibition in the United States.
07:17 So I immediately contacted the artist and asked him if we could borrow the work for the exhibition.
07:24 So that's how we started to know each other.
07:27 But we have never met until last year when we did the site visit here in Venice.
07:34 And then also, of course, because of COVID.
07:38 So the first time we met, we already kind of felt like friends,
07:42 old friends that we've known each other for a long time.
07:46 [crowd noise]
08:00 I was the final student in college in Taiwan.
08:03 And when I, the second year, during the study in college,
08:10 I shift my art from traditional art to video.
08:15 Because the biggest difference between the two forms is video is time-based art.
08:25 And the medium allowed me to make more experiments along with the new technology.
08:36 At that time, we had the tape camera, with the tape.
08:40 Yeah, we had, but we don't have class.
08:43 We don't have teacher can teach the video art.
08:47 So I just learned from the film, learned from the experimental film.
08:54 That's all.
08:55 And sometimes from magazine, Nanjing Pike, or yeah.
09:00 And then I went to Germany.
09:02 I got the AAD scholarship and studied at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Kassel
09:11 for two years and a half.
09:14 And I have the more deep and more professional knowledge about the medium art.
09:24 [crowd noise]
09:39 Funny that you mentioned that, that how Taiwan is known as a high-tech center
09:47 with its semiconductor, while the Taiwan's artists were not necessarily known
09:57 to use high-tech with their creativity.
10:02 But it's very important actually to know that there's this one side
10:06 that is of course driven by market, how Taiwan is known for its technology
10:13 and semiconductor.
10:15 And I think that this is a highly invisible part about artists from Taiwan,
10:20 that their work is not known.
10:22 And especially as you have seen in this exhibition,
10:25 what an outstanding artist Yuan Guangming is,
10:28 and the fact that he is so lesser known around the world is still a puzzle to me.
10:35 And I really hope that this show can elevate the awareness and acknowledgement
10:43 of the excellence of Taiwan's artists.
10:46 [crowd noise]
11:01 Yes, yes, new technologies are very important for the moving images
11:07 because they bring more new possibilities and a new way to express the new moving images.
11:17 Yes, positive.
11:20 For me there are two situations, for example, video as a medium or video as a tool.
11:28 For me video is a medium, so it's not only just a tool.
11:33 I need to explore and also make a lot of experiments for the technology.
11:43 So of course you should very carefully use such technology.
11:50 [crowd noise]
12:06 I really, really appreciate and value the compliment,
12:10 and also I'm gladly taking it because I think that we really put on a fantastic show,
12:17 and especially the artist and his team, I feel like they have given everything they got.
12:23 Having that said though, I feel like particularly this Venice finale,
12:28 and I haven't been to that many, but definitely a few,
12:32 I'm also now flattering the Venice finale because I'm part of it this time,
12:38 I do think we're seeing a paradigm shift.
12:41 We're seeing so many unknown names.
12:44 We're seeing so many, I would say, venues outside of the Giardini or Asinale
12:50 that are being recognized and people see their value.
12:54 My friends went to the few venues and different pavilions outside,
13:01 the Nigerian, I want to give a shout out to my friends in Nigeria,
13:05 and also ourselves, you know, Taiwan,
13:07 and I feel like people are starting to make that mind switch.
13:13 People are starting to become more aware that there are really excellent work out of the norm,
13:21 and we're very happy to present this work, this body of work,
13:26 which we think is very strong,
13:28 and it got sort of confirmed over and over by our friends recently,
13:34 just in these past few days.
13:36 So I do feel like there's a larger paradigm shift that we're observing,
13:44 and we are bear witness to.
13:47 So I feel like the timing is really, really good.
13:53 I also feel like we're fortunate and unfortunate in this kind of moment of our history
14:00 where people started to have awareness,
14:03 and at the same time, everything is becoming more intense.
14:07 It's hard to explain or hard to say how I get the ideas,
14:29 but normally, most of my works come from my personal experiences in my life.
14:35 And, yeah, you can see some works look very political,
14:42 but something like such works is...
14:48 I don't usually seek out such very political work.
14:55 Opposite, such political events came to my life and forced me to address them.
15:05 So some ideas is something like this.
15:09 It's just like it should make me...
15:13 [laughs]
15:16 I think the artist Yuan Guoming has the ability to transcend the poetic
15:39 with intensity, with danger, with violence,
15:45 in the way that doesn't romanticize it,
15:49 but serve as a cautionary tale for people to contemplate on.
15:55 And I think that's very important.
15:57 I think we have seen enough violence,
15:59 and we have seen enough patronizing and romanticizing of violence,
16:06 but I think that he always starts with this very calm place
16:11 and with this very imagined sort of violence
16:16 so that it's in a controlled, safe environment for us to reflect upon.
16:22 And I think this is particularly important for people who are living in peace.
16:26 If you're living in war,
16:28 I don't think there's necessity to watch it over and over again.
16:32 But particularly for people who are living in peace,
16:36 I think that kind of a cautionary tale is always necessary,
16:41 and it takes someone who is very skillful and creative
16:45 to share that in the environment that we probably forgot about the danger.
16:52 And I don't know, that's kind of how I feel totally as an audience.
16:57 And I always look at the artwork first and foremost as an audience.
17:04 In the past years, the core of my creative work
17:25 actually is mainly similar.
17:29 It's all about the home and all about the uncanny tomorrow.
17:35 But the way how to make my work is always changing.
17:45 For example, sometimes I will use the cable cam system,
17:51 or sometimes I will invent the new technology for myself.
18:01 But mainly the core of my creative idea is still similar.
18:07 It's about home and the uncanny tomorrow.
18:11 [crowd noise]
18:27 I think for this Venice presentation, "The Everyday War,"
18:32 the fact that it was actually taking place in this 100-year-old prison,
18:40 and this prison used to be for entrapment, torture, and suffering,
18:51 is turned into a space for freedom of expression and creativity,
18:57 in particular for the artists of Taiwan.
19:00 I think that is actually in itself a really liberating message
19:05 that I really hope the world to feel.
19:08 And maybe in a brief moment, even with such heavy history,
19:13 we can all feel free.
19:15 [crowd noise]