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| Everything will fall into ruins |
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文 / 布萊克‧卡特 (阿布)
More than a decade after Taiwan artist Yao Jui-chung ‘recovered the mainland,’ he is exploring the forgotten corners of Formosa, ‘the beautiful island’
When I first saw a black-and-white photograph of Yao Jui-chung (姚瑞中) three years ago, I guessed he’d probably be in his fifties or early sixties by now. Yao has published six books on art history and art theory, he’s exhibited all over the world, he teaches at the Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA), and he represented Taiwan at the 1997 Venice Biennale. No small list of accomplishments, even for an artist of that age. But then I met him last Tuesday afternoon at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), where he was installing a solo exhibit called “Everything will Fall into Ruins.” Yao looks young for his age — 37.
I should explain.
When Yao began at the National Institute of Art (now TNUA) in 1990, things were changing in Taiwan. Three years earlier, president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) had ended the nearly 40 years of martial law that pressured artists to pander to the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) tastes. Under the old regime, funding was allotted to conformists. Chiang’s repeal opened the government and society to criticism.
When Yao graduated in 1994, he placed an ad in Hsiung Shih Art Monthly announcing his intention to “take back the mainland,” borrowing a KMT slogan referring to the party’s pipe dream of retaking the Chinese mainland. (To this day, most maps sold in Taiwan still include Mongolia as part of the Republic of China.) The ad said that after two years of training — Taiwan’s mandatory military service, where he spent time washing F-5E aircraft and hosting karaoke nights — Yao would be ready to launch the attack.
The photograph I had seen was recorded from the resultant 1996 series “Recovering the Mainland.” In the works, Yao is caught hopping mid-air, in rigid military stance, posed in front of famous historical sites in communist China. The photographs appeared faded, like pictures from China’s Cultural Revolution when nationalistic youths would often travel to sites of historical importance in the communist revolution.
Probably hung over on a Sunday morning walk through TFAM, I had failed to notice the date and assumed the photographs were taken in the seventies.
But the Yao I met on Tuesday at TFAM, where he was installing his latest show, was the same as the man in the pictures: slim, handsome and poised. Without the faded quality of the “Recover the Mainland” works, Yao — dressed in all black — looked more the contemplative art theoretician than a soldier.
<< ‘That one who writes books’>>
When I’d asked friends about Yao prior to the interview, I was told he was “that one who writes books.” His seventh, “The Ruined Islands,” is in the works. Yao says that in an environment where talk of contemporary art was often met with perplexed looks and a lingering hesitancy to question authority, books played a large part in his growth as an artist. While studying painting as a teenager at Fuxing Trade and Arts School, he was impressed by, among others, a collection of interviews with Marcel Duchamp.
“I read a lot of books,” Yao says. “After I started at the National Institute, I quit painting. I realized there was something more important inside art than just making pretty pictures, it was more about ideas. And there are various ways to do that.”
His following work focused on photography, found objects, and installations.
“There were no limits. I’d try anything at that time,” he says.
Yao first began publishing in 1997. To tell the truth, most us don’t find reading art theory particularly thrilling. It’s hard work in English and I wouldn’t dream of trying in Chinese. But while a 37-year-old professor of contemporary photography might sound a little boring to some, Yao isn’t. Cerebral at times, his work can also be bitingly direct.
Take his half-ink, half-gold-leaf 2004 series “Cynic” for example.
In one image a dog-headed female figure, legs spread, gives birth to a full-grown adult. Yao uses dogs — specifically the Formosan dog — as symbols of the people of Taiwan. Some of the works from this series contain Chinese/English plays on words. He makes poignant, often bitter observations using Chinese phrases that sound like innocuous English words. In one piece a red figure — presumably symbolic of communism — is shown practicing a martial arts kick with the Chinese characters “chuai ni si” (‘kick you to death’) above the semi-homophonous English word “Chinese.” Another piece juxtaposes the English word “Taiwanese” with Chinese characters that read “Ta wan ni si” (“He plays with you, you die”). The work shows a red male figure having sex with a green female dog-headed figure.
Yao’s latest show is more subtle than the works in “Cynic.” I get the feeling he’s trying to encourage the viewer to think more. The exhibit consists of six large pieces that combine multiple photographs of decaying buildings, sculptures of religious idols, and military structures from Taiwanese islands. A piece called "Nebulous Light” comprises 46 black and white photographs in hexagonal frames — arranged in two groups of 23, the number of chromosome pairs in the human genome.
Yao is noncommittal about whether the pictures are meant to show the decay of Taiwanese culture, the decay of KMT-built Taiwan structures, or just a reminder of how things have changed. The ideas in these works are more open to interpretation than some of his older works, and perhaps consequently, he’s vague when speaking about them.
“I’m not sure whether I travel around to see the ruins, or to be seen by the ruins,” he says.
Hmm.
Toward the end of the interview, I tried to sneak in a question about current events in Taiwan.
“Will A-bian [President Chen Shui-bian] step down?” I ventured, as we smoked in the courtyard in front of the museum.
Yao was silent for a few moments, thinking about something, but it didn’t seem like he was thinking about my question.
“No,” he said, laughing to himself, looking a little bored. His hair was clean-cut and his clothes were immaculate, but his front teeth were stained with tobacco. I wasn’t sure if he was laughing at my question or the situation in Taiwan.
“‘No,’ you don’t think he’ll step down, or ‘no,’ as in ‘no comment’?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. It seemed like Yao was leaving me to decide for myself how he might feel.
And that’s part of the beauty of a lot of conceptual art, I think. Once the artist completes a work, it’s up to the viewer to complete. Look at “Taiwanese” from 2004. In light of current events in Taiwan, doesn’t it look different now?
[Note: At the time local news was dominated by a group called the “red-shirt brigade” that was rallying for the president, whose party is symbolized by the color green, to resign over corruption scandals.]
By Blake Carter
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Revised version of an article published in Taiwan News on Friday, September 29, 2006 |
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