Segmentation/Multiplication-Taiwanese Art from the People

Entering the famous Sala Badoer Church in Venice, the works from "Segmentation/Multiplication: Three Taiwanese Artists" and the unpainted brick walls of the several-century-old church merge into one, creating a highly civilized atmosphere.

If artists and curators work together, then themes are more evident in art exhibitions. From the second on the left: the artist Wu Mali, the Italian curator Enrico Pedrini, the artist Marvin Minto Fang and the curator Yang Wen-I. At the far right is Tsung Pu's pretty daughter.

Unlimited readings

In the church, the only noise comes from Wu Mali's work The Zero Point of Literature, in which the clatter of typewriter keys emanates from a mountainous pile of shredded book pages. Volume after volume of historical constructions, page after page of literary imaginings, phrase after phrase crystallizing human thought were put through a paper shredder here. The structure that binds words together was torn apart, dissembling the content and meaning of books, before they were remolded into this man-high mountain of shredded paper.

"The truth is that I just wanted to write a book," Wu says, and a book needs readers. Here the audience transcends old book-reading habits and conceptions, using hearing, vision and imagination to read Wu's "book." For this, a foundation in grammar or even an ability to read Chinese or foreign language isn't needed.

In The Zero Point of Literature the shredded paper and the sound of the typewriter are Wu's words, and the mountain-shaped structure is her grammar. The name of the work, The Zero Point of Literature is taken from a book by the French deconstructionist Roland Barthes, in which Barthes argues that after works of literature are created, the power of interpretation rests in the hands of the readers, at which time the writer is powerless to disturb the readers' minds. This is exactly the point that Wu Mali is making.

When you confront the mountain of paper shredded from work after work of literature in Wu Mali's Zero Point of Literature, what do you read in it? （photo by Wu Ma li）

Beauty and violence

As you walk toward the church's cemetery, Tsong Pu's A Space Not for the Chorus is right at the center of the exhibition space. Shards from terra cotta flower pots have been arranged in concentric circles, in the middle of which stand hammers. It is as if the hammers dropped in an echoing boom of smashing flower pots and channels of strength pushed the shards out in every direction. One gets the sense of dozens of shock waves moving outward, spreading beauty and violence silently in the air.

There are no living flowers in A Space Not for the Chorus, just ones pulled out of the earth or toppled over. With just the thin layer of earth in these pots, flowers can't eke out an existence. What one sees is what is left after the violence, circles of shards amid the silence.

With Tsong Pu's exquisite and mature installation technique, the small and large pottery shards arranged in their disordered way create a rhythm between strong and weak and rising and falling that is similar to what is found in poetry. After being smashed by an outside force, a common-looking industrially produced flower pot takes on character and poetic meaning. Chaos and order, conflict and harmony, standard industrial forms and individual character, death and rebirth, wholeness and fragmentation-all alternate and mix repeatedly in this work.

Curator Yang Wen-I sees in Tsong Pu's work a conversation of materials and elegantly expressive musically poetic rhythm. In the late 1980s Yang says that Tsong began to meditate on and judge the problems of society, nature and human civilization. A Space Not for the Chorus is making piercing commentary on the state of the Taiwan environment, human and natural.

Actions and vitality that suit the place

To the side of Tsong Pu's A Space Not for the Chorus one comes across the intersecting lines of Marvin Minto Fang's Dots, which is spread across half the exhibition space. In Fang's hands, wheat can be high or low, grow as a single stalk or together in large expanses. Here the wheat is growing in countless round, white "made in China" porcelain pots.

In comparison to Tsong Pu's terra cotta pottery shards, the white porcelain has experienced more industrial processing, and the wheat's existence has been limited to these pots' narrow confines. The wheat combines in the same round form in one identical "China" pot after another.

Under the strict control of the artist, who has given each pot the same amount of fertilizer and water during the period of the exhibition, the lifetime of the wheat-from its planting and sprouting, to its growing green and lush and then dry and brown-has been timed to coincide exactly with the period of the exhibit itself. Wheat has become something that no longer grows free where it may-let alone something that has authority over its own choices. Perhaps within the manufactured "nature" of modern industrial society we are all planters of such wheat.

Multiplication/Segmentation

After viewing the works of these three artists, one notices an interesting phenomenon, namely that each work reverberates thematically in the others. They each use a single material in repetition, showing it breaking apart and coming together. Their inner meanings all focus on the theme of fragmentation. And the layout of the exhibition integrates the works in ways that add meaning. Perhaps this represents a masterpiece of the curators.

Unlike the TaiwanoTaiwan:Facing :FACES group show put on at the Taiwan Pavilion by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), the main themes for "Multiplication/Segmentation" were planned around the participating artists, and ultimate responsibility lay with the curators: Italian critic Enrico Pedrini and Yang Wen-I, a doctoral student at Heidelberg University. This is the first Taiwan exhibit accepted to the Biennale whose curators were from outside TFAM. The financial support it received from the Yageo company provides a good model for future overseas exhibitions.

The Italian art historian and critic Palazozoli holds that "Segmentation/Multiplication" offers a new and fresh style and that the works of the three exhibiting artists share an Oriental essence and a unique style that sets them apart from the West. Curator Pedrini also believes that Western culture is full of fragmentation, which reduces individual qualities of thought. The works of Wu Mali, Marvin Minto Fang and Tsong Pu, on the other hand, show an inclusiveness, flexibility and multi-dimensional feel for space. The resulting inner meaning is complex and breaks down the exclusiveness of meaning seen in Western rationality.

More space for international exhibitions

The international shows promoted by Taiwan in the past have been expensive and limited by the lack of venues available to them. Except in cases where the exhibitions of works have been sponsored by Taiwan museums, few foreign curators have been willing to take on Taiwanese works. And administrators at nationally supported art museums, because of their funding, must consider the domestic art environment and the importance of evenly distributing financial resources. When planning an exhibit, they have wider considerations and greater restrictions. They always tend to want shows of leading artists that focus on revealing the diversity of art in Taiwan. It is always relatively difficult to pull out a main theme from such shows.

Yang Wen-I notes that the Biennale has always been an open-application exhibition. For instance, four years ago the motion artist Li Ming-shen applied as an individual. But this time the curators filed the application, and after careful consideration of the Biennale selection committee, it was accepted. Multiplication/Fragmentation is formally listed as part of the Biennale de Venezia 97 and is included in the show's official catalog.

With the efforts of both government officials and private individuals, the Taiwanese works exhibited in the Venice show this year had two big impacts: They showed the maturing of Taiwan art and provided another model to stimulate the international art world.

p.124

A view of the entire exhibition space for "Segmentation/Multiplication." At the very back is Wu Mali's The Zero Point of Literature; the pottery shards and hammers in the middle are Tsung Pu's A Space Not for the Chorus; and the circles of green wheat are Marvin Minto Fang's Dots.

p.125

If artists and curators work together, then themes are more evident in art exhibitions. From the second on the left: the artist Wu Mali, the Italian curator Enrico Pedrini, the artist Marvin Minto Fang and the curator Yang Wen-I. At the far right is Tsung Pu's pretty daughter.

p.126

When you confront the mountain of paper shredded from work after work of literature in Wu Mali's Zero Point of Literature, what do you read in it? (photo by Wu Mali)