text by Andy Fairgrieve
The Glenfiddich Distillery, Dufftown, Scotland since 1887 home to the world famous Glenfiddich single malt scotch whisky. IT Park, Taipei, Taiwan, for the past 20 year at the forefront the world of contemporary art in Asia. Both parties still independent in their respective fields. Passion, dedication and continuity driving both forward. Two hearts beating as one.
Our relationship began in 2005 when the already established Glenfiddich Artists in Residence programme was extended to include artists from around the globe rather just from within Europe. This move of course reflected Glenfiddich's global statue. Since then each summer we have welcomed in residence an artist from Taiwan each of whom has been selected with the assistance and guidance of IT Park.
Now with four Taiwanese artists, Chen Hui-chiao, Wu Chi-tsung, Yao Jui-chung and Yuan Goang-ming who between them have spent a collective year in residence at The Glenfiddich Distillery. We are able to further strengthen our relationships with this group show: A Heartbeat of Time.
Heartbeats of time, the metronome of existence, each passing tick of the clock bringing a new possibility, a fresh inspiration. Building each moment towards a lifetime of experience. In equal measure these moments can either be everyday, or they can be extraordinary. Anything can happen...or nothing at all.
Over the passing four years it has been my great privilege to assist each of these artists in every aspect of their residency, from the ordinary things like helping with visa applications, collection from the airport, organising materials and equipment to the extraordinary moments. These come from the shared experiences of working closely with each artist to help them realise their projects, the special moments of friendship.
For Yuan Goang-ming these heartbeats of time are the everyday occurrences of every life. Disappearing Landscape: Scotland, captures the mundane commonplace moments of life around the distillery. Goang-ming's camera soars through a number of different locations like a separate entity capturing and exposing the minutiae of the distillers art. Displaying the stages that must be undertaken in order to result in some thing special being created. The production of ‘Disappearing Landscape: Scotland’ and the making of Glenfiddich single malt whisky are not dissimilar. The years of labour and effort involved in the distilling and maturation of Glenfiddich that are recorded in the work as well as the weeks that went in to the production of the presentation, are distilled down to an essence. Each frame of the film is like the ingredients of Glenfiddich single malt whisky, separate, often diverse elements are brought carefully together into one coherent strand. Bringing to the receiver a unique sensory purity of experience and occurrence. The activity of the distilleries process areas are laid out. From the tun rooms where the initial fermentation takes place, through the avenue of copper pot stills in Still House 1, to the calm of warehouse 8, where the distilled spirits spend their long period of quite maturation. Interrupting and interspersed into this flow are scenes of other activities, an evening at Dufftown's weekly ceilidh, an afternoon by my house, a moment in Goang-ming's kitchen. This human activity is contrasted with the serene beauty of the natural world, the barley ripening in the sun, swaying in the wind, waiting for harvest. The verdant tranquillity of the forest that stands on the hill overlooking Glenfiddich. As each frame passes, so a moment in time is over, normally never to be repeated. But in Goang-mings exploration of normality, the rules of everyday existence are suspended, each moment can be replayed, revisited, reversed and experienced again. Over the past seven year that I have been involved in the residency programme I have been privileged to have a close working relationship with many of the residents and their projects. None more so that Goang-ming and Disappearing Landscape: Scotland. Not least because I became part of the film itself!
For the works of Wu Chi-tsung, everyday normality and occurrence are equally important elements. Chi-tsung's concerns lie in the purity of existence, the real nature of images. In ‘Perspective’ everyday views are altered, everything is not as it seems. Components of the images are condensed and elongated, so rather than disappearing away to some far off point as the natural order dictates, they are stretched back out, returning along the line of the viewpoint. Architecture is reinvented, static structures are given a new dynamic as they seem to streak away from the camera leaving elements of their composition behind them like the debris tail of a comet. Shadows are equally corrupted, no longer uniform, with their length and orientation dictated by the solar power. They run in opposite directions defying the laws of physics as if many suns, not just one, shone down onto the face of our planet. Unfortunately during his 2006 residency Chi-tsung experienced the negative possibilities that can be the outcome of a heartbeat of time when combined with the powerful forces of nature. His project had required the conversion of a space at the distillery known as the old peat shed into a viewing gallery for his digital pinhole camera. The conversion as well as the electronics that controlled the pinhole mechanism involved not an inconsiderable amount of labour and painstaking effort on Chi-tsung's part. On the morning of the exhibition opening - a sudden and tremendous thunderstorm erupted. In the deluge drains were over come and the torrent flooded the peat shed. The storm dissipated almost as soon as it had appeared, but the damage had been done. While thankfully the sensitive electronic equipment was out of harms way. The fabrics Chi-tsung had used as a projection screen and curtains to block light at the entrance had been almost ruined. This flooding has so far not reoccurred, and from speaking to some long serving members of the distilleries workforce such a flood seems not to have happened before in their memory. A once in a lifetime event perhaps.
Such serendipitous events are very much at the heart of the works by Chen Hui-chiao, who was our first Taiwanese resident in 2005. Her residency piece ‘A Feeling in the Guts’ references her strong belief that she would find something special in Scotland. The work itself was inspired by a something as mundane as a wind turbine. At least they are mundane to myself. Over the past few years groupings of these turbines have began to appear over the hillsides of Scotland, redefining reference points on the landscape. There is one particular group just south of Dufftown on the road to Aberdeen. I have driven past them more times than I can recall. At first they were startling, but over time they have faded into the background, become part of the scenery. Of course a new pair of eyes always sees thing in a fresh way. We were driving back from Aberdeen airport in 2005 after collecting Chiao and her assistant Yining Shen, when the turbines came into view for the first time. Up until that point Chiao had been sitting quietly in the back of the car. I assumed she was tired from her long flight, perhaps apprehensive to what the next three months in this strange country would bring. However when the turbines loomed up ahead on the skyline she became more animated, asking more questions, explaining how the turbines were of great interest to her. At the time I did not understand but as I grew to know more about her and her work I could see why these giant turbines with their long sharp looking blades cutting through the clouds above them held so much appeal. The contrast of sharp against soft. Further to this Chiao had never been to Scotland yet deep in her heart she knew what she would find. Over the years our relationship has continued to blossom. Not least because each year Chiao provides me with the greatest of practical assistance in selecting new artists from Taiwan for our programme. Chiao holds a great belief in astrology, for her things do not just happen by chance. Profound moments are there to be discovered and experienced. For her each heartbeat is special. There is a dream like element to her work most apparent in ‘The Silver Dust #3’. The ethereal nature of the elements that go to make this work, the shadows, the pool, the use of projections, give her work a shifting quality. Nothing is solid or stationary. It is if they are only there by chance, yet their arrangements are preordained by the artist. Together they create something more profound than simply their components, perhaps they are metaphors for her outlook on existence?
Yao Jui-chung's collection of golden drawings are also personal references to existence, equally as inward looking as the works of Chiao but more retrospective. Building on the body of work already created in previous collections such as ‘The Cynic’ and his 2007 residency work: ‘Wonderful’. In ‘Dreamy’, Yao's alter ego, Yaoyao is situated in a number of intimate relations, a mixture of sensitivity with the pornographic. Seemingly traditional locations are intruded on by the technology of modern life, placing the scenes into a timeless context suggesting the characters are not mealy mortals. Like ancient gods, the figures in his work fill their days and nights with pleasurable recreations, are they the wistful desires for an alternative plane of existence? There is the sense of voyeurism, contained in the pictures. An Intruder spies on a couple lovemaking from a window. The presence of television and computer screens bring the outside world to the private moments of the characters. Spectral figures lurk, watching over sleeping bodies, the cat curled up in a corner (sleeping or watching?) Even for the audience it is as if to view the images is some personal intrusion. These works are very much about being outside looking in, about desires and fantasy. One coherent strand running through Yao's collection is the presence of a bottle of spirits, some times Glenfiddich other times one of William Grant and Sons other brands, an apt underpinning to his works as a reference to the commonality and shared experience that binds these four artists together.
Programme Curator
The Glenfiddich Distillery
Dufftown Scotland |
|
