Long Live – Jui-Chung Yao
Contemporary life is full of rapid changes, the virtual collides with
reality, chaos is the ultimate master. In the current digital era, we
are overloaded with information yet lack the wisdom to process it. We
know everything, yet are still lost. We live in a nightmare, but also in
a moment of great opportunity.
These paradoxes shape the work of many contemporary artists in Taiwan.
At the
2014 Ars Electronica Festival the exhibition
Buddha on the Beach presents Taiwanese works that take up the topic through interactive installation, live performance, and visual and video art.
We had the opportunity to talk with the exhibition’s curators,
I-Wei Li and
Pierre Bongiovanni, and ask them why Buddha is on the beach, and how this image connects with the work of contemporary Taiwanese artists.
You can find a full list of the works exhibited in
Buddha on the Beach here:
http://www.aec.at/c/en/buddha-on-the-beach/
Realm of Reverberation – Chieh-Jen Chen
Hi I-Wei and Pierre! Can you explain the title ‘Buddha on the Beach’?
I-Wei Li: First of all, this is a tribute to the
Philip Glass masterpiece ‘
Einstein on the Beach’.
For us, this piece is absolutely revolutionary and still very important
today. We also chose the title, Buddha on the Beach, because we are
concerned about the crisis in the world. I think this is clear to
everyone. We have many different kinds of crisis. Lately there was the
tsunami, the wreck of the Costa Concordia, and a lot of irregular
migration is happening at the moment. This all happens at the
waterfront. So the beach, in a way, is a very critical point for
confrontation, for conflicts, for tension. And the interesting question
is, ‘why is Buddha on the beach?’ With the entire crisis in the world,
this is the moment we look for Buddha, look for God. And if Buddha is on
the Beach, is he there to save the world, to help us, or is Buddha
there to take holiday, because he’s too tired and needs a break? So we
are using this title to question the current condition of the world, and
our relationship to the crisis.
Smashing Karaoke vs. Brass Band – Dawang Huang
How did this exhibition start out?
I-Wei Li: This exhibition is not only about Taiwan.
All the works we picked – we are very confident in saying this – have
international perspectives and speak about the world today. For us, we
chose to work with Ars Electronica because we consider this festival as a
very important platform. The important thing for this exhibition is
that we hope it will allow for a dialogue, a real window, for
connections to address issues on a global level. This is very important
for us.
Hand - Chieh-Wen Lin
What do the different works of ‘Buddha on the Beach’ have in common?
Pierre Bongiovanni: In common is the question, ‘what
is the future?’ For example, there is an artwork with wood and another
artwork in the form of a videogame. You can think, ‘why are these works
in the same place?’, because they don’t have the same culture, they
don’t have the same background, or the same experience, but what they
have in common is to think about our future. The future is about
globalisation. What can we do with that? It’s the same question for you,
for me, for European, for American, for rich people, for poor people,
etc. It’s the same question: ‘What can we do for our future?’
Smile Buddha – Yi-Ping Hung
What will be the highlights of the exhibition?
I-Wei Li: Everything is a highlight for me, because
we see a close connection between all the works. You will see it in our
exhibition design, when you come to experience the exhibition. So it’s
not like we pick a few pieces and say these are the masterpieces for us.
It’s important to experience the exhibition as a whole. This time we
really break boundaries. For example, we mix contemporary art and new
media with aboriginal art, all these are together in one exhibition.
Pierre Bongiovanni: Each art piece is one point of
view of the situation, and in this time of crisis you cannot have only
one point of view. You need to manage your own different points of view.
You need to manage it and say this is possible, that is possible and
these are also possible. What can I do with all these different
perspectives? The reference to the Buddha is also about that, because
Buddha’s world is not only one world. He has six different worlds and
each day you go from one world to another. One is the animal world, one
the paradise world, one the wild world, etc. In this exhibition it’s the
same.
Three States of the World – I-Ming Lin
The exhibition isn’t only situated in one place. It’s spread across different locations…
I-Wei Li: Exactly, the exhibition is in different
extraordinary places in the festival, in Linz city center. The context
of each space is also very important – why is this piece in the church?
why is this video installation in the school? We also took the context
into consideration, when we designed the exhibition.
YI – Chao Tsai Chiu
Last year your exhibition ‘Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0’ toured different cities. Does ‘Buddha on the Beach’ also tour the world?
I-Wei Li: We plan a tour in Europe and South
America, but we are now open to work with international artists from
different countries in dialogue with the thematic we propose, with the
relation between art and crisis. This is a new approach with this
exhibition.
Pierre Bongiovanni: Yes,
we prepare
the next exhibition and we want to enlarge the focus. We prepare an
international event with the same topic and we need to enlarge our
network. We want to build a new, larger team.
So we are
very interested in getting to know people who think about the relations
between art and global crisis. So, anyone who is interested can visit
us at the exhibition during Ars Electronica Festival to make contact
with us.
Curator I-Wei Li
Join the 2014 Ars Electronica Festival from 4th to 8th
September and be inspired by the Taiwanese art. The exhibition will be
in the FestivalCity, at Mariendom (St. Mary’s Cathedral) and
Akademischen Gymnasium Linz, and LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz.
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