文 / 蘇珊
If you had the good fortune to go to TFAM last week, you may have seen a ghost wandering around in the basement. As legend goes, phantom-like creatures have been infesting the museum and making artworks disappear and causing a mysterious fire. Conceptual artist Tu Wei (杜偉) wanted to create an exhibition taking this ethereal figure as his starting point. His one-person show consisted of a sign posted adjacent to a locked gallery.
The sign showed that "you are here" and that the ghost is there. Besides warning visitors not to smoke, drink, eat or spread gossip, it also warned ghosts that they are unwelcome. According to Chinese beliefs, ghosts like to inhabit the corners of a room.
A poster from Tu Wei's exhibition humorously commenting on the possibility of a ghost in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
PHOTO: NFAM
Tu Wei's installation was located in the most remote corner gallery in the museum's basement. Architecturally, the space has posed problems to artists trying to figure out how best to fill the cavernous gallery.
In Tu's show, the viewer, frustrated that the display area's door is locked, peers into the slight open crack of the doorway. Slowly emerging out of the distant dark shadows is a faint bluish hooded figure walking slowly towards the viewer which then suddenly vanishes.
For a work of art, Tu Wei, like Duchamp, only allows one viewer at a time to peer through the doorway. By not allowing entry into the room, Tu Wei succeeds in filling the space and your imagination with the spirit of a ghost.
Although this show is now over, the arts world gossip that inspired it -- a ghost in the gallery who seems to target some of the more challenging and physically explicit works displayed in the gallery -- may still be wondering about. Tu's work provides a slight element of humor to a mystery that remains unsolved.
TAIPEI TIMES SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR
Dec 10, 2000, Page 19 |
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