text by Huang Hai-Ming
In this article ,I will take a look at the structure of narrative time in Tang Huang-Chen's “Installation That Requires the Physical Participation of the Viewer” exhibited at IT Park in May 1994. I will, of course, also have to refer to a few of her important works since her return to Taiwan.
Plastic art is often regarded as a type of “spatial art”, different from those “pure or mixed” temporal art such as music, the theater, dance, and literature. Such classification is certainly applicable where the material element are concerned. However, as long as one is dealing with the process of aesthetic experience, even if the piece concerned is a static work of plastic art, one still needs time to look at it, to experience it. Perhaps this type of “time consumption” cannot be considered as an inherent element of a work. But, where there is a “logic”, “causal relations” or some “repetition and variation”, time is still one of the work's internal elements, even if the work does not involve any tangible movement. This is even more so for an installation piece which not only has an internal causal logic, but requires physical participation. If a piece uses the consumption of physical energy, continuous yet useless hard work, and an unremittingly renewed pursuit for more as part of its content, then time will become a substantial internal element, especially if the other elements present in the piece are separate and impossible to view at one time, and if they are themselves continuously changing.
In the work of this installation, some “linguistic elements” are arranged along a path extended over three levels. The audience is asked to come into real contact with these elements, to change their shape, move them around and to repeat what one has already experienced on the path, changes in mind and body , choices, exchanges , conjectures and shocks. This movement is a development in existential space, and at the same time the process of bestowing meaning and completing a greater “narrative passage”. Viewing, existing, and creating are simultaneously completed. Perhaps, true reading of this “passage” is completed only on one's way home while reflecting on the exhibition. It is only by means of recollection, comparison and organization that one is able to discover the logic of its inner development. This is what I hope to do by means of this article. However, before analyzing this piece, I would first like to take a quick look at a few others.
(1) One Hundred and Fifty Books form a Private Collection and a Step-ladder (Eslite bookshop Gallery 1991)
The Wooden folding-ladder opens up to become a pyramidal from reaching to the sky. One hundred and fifty books are piled up next to one of the ladder's sloping sides. During a prescribed time of thirty days, the artist set out every day from home and went to the place where the piece was being exhibited , successively moving five books from one side of ladder to the other, and piling them up in the same way next to the ladder's sloping side. The act of moving five books every day is undoubtedly the “fundamental unit” from which this narrative piece is composed, an absolutely absurd and meaningless obsessive repetition. In comparison with the spiritual content of the one hundred and fifty books on the humanities, and the ladder symbolically reaching up transcending everything , this futile act of repetition is even more obviously absurd.
(2) The Ceremonial Performance of Throwing Eggs into a Paper Bag From One Side of a Plexiglass Barrier (IT PARK Gallery 1991)
At the sealed-off end of a rectangular space , Tang Huang-Chen arranged various paper bags, Plexiglass, and toilet paper into an inverted “U” shape. The paper bags are the type grocers use to put flour and eggs in. They are packed closely against the foot of the wall. The Plexiglass slants diagonally between the wall and the floor, so blocking the line along which the eggs are to be thrown. There is a small pile of toilet paper in front of the Plexiglass. Each time, she takes an egg and squats in front of the paper bags and the Plexiglass, piously and attentively aiming towards the target and then throws the egg. But of course the eggs are blocked out by the transparent barrier. Broken by this barrier, the turbid mucus of yolk and egg-white slides down the Plexiglasss and onto the toilet paper. Then she gets up, takes anther egg, goes to a second and then a third position, squats down and aims. Then she takes anther egg and aims again. This is certainly not some well-geared, well-proportioned repetitive act. With the repeated action and the continuous using up of physical strength, her muscles are increasingly worn out. As for the psychological reaction to all this , it was originally an alienated , neutral, physical action, but has gradually become an emotional maniac ceremony, a meaningless absurdity, a futile act maintained by great willpower. In the end it will possibly become an obsessive action carried out for its own sake. Afterwards, the artist put all of the dirty toilet paper into a big rubbish bag. If throwing eggs was a violent display of sorts, then quickly throwing these remains into a rubbish bag is even more so a terrifying act. It is a metaphor for death. This death seems to have a certain masochism to it. This piece makes a lot of people think of a woman's period, but it seems as if its content is even more complicated than that . For example , at the end , she separates these remains into different areas using chalk powder, seeming to produce a certain image of some group massacre.
(3 ) Biscuits, Empty Bottles and a Continued Repetition of “Je t'aime ”, “I love you” (Taipei fine Art Museum 1992)
The whole space was divided into a grid. An empty bottle was put at each intersection , a biscuit placed at the mouth of each bottle. On each bottle was written the warning “ Don’t touch”. The performer hid in a corner of the room ,facing a wall and monotonously repeating “I love you” in French and English for a period of ninety minutes. We can't help but wondering for whom “ Don't touch.” is meant. In the same way , to whom is she saying “ I love you”? Here we can discover three spatial developments:
(1) The time used for the artists hard work in making and setting out the biscuits and in setting out the bottles.
(2) An “I love you” meant fir nobody in particular , and its lengthy and monotonous repetition.
(3)The continual repeated use of taboos, regardless of whether these are aimed at the audience or a development of the relationship between the biscuits and the bottles.
It seems as though these three theories need to be confirmed by an observation of the mutual relationships between the piece involving the throwing of eggs and her later works. At the moment we needn't analyze these any closer. I hope that while giving an analysis of the main piece in question, I might at any time refer to these three works
(4) Licking, Sprinkling, and Spying ( IT PARK Gallery 1994)
IT PARK is a three-story building , each floor connected by a narrow staircase. Actually, the ground floor is just the narrow staircase leading to the second floor. This is often seen in shop-like layouts. At the entrance to the staircase is a transparent plastic case. The visitor can reach into the case and use a small knife to cut off a piece of potato, and then take it up to the second floor. On the second floor there is a marble floor with small black paper boxes on it arranged in a grid formation. Following the instructions given, the visitor picks up one of the black boxes and puts the piece of potato into the space vacated in the grid. It seems that one can distinguish a first part of the exhibition here.
Next the visitor takes the black paper box to the staircase , being told to touch the box with a wet part of the body (generally speaking, one's tongue ). This appears to be different from the first stage of the exhibition, but in fact one can spot certain repetitions.
Next, the moving line brings one before a cone-shaped pile of flour. The visitor is once again instructed to sprinkle some flour onto the black box (especially the wet part). But just as s/he bends down to do this , a light sensor is triggered and a video camera is turned on, recording the act of licking boxes and sprinkling flour. This action can be regarded as a repetition of or complement to those of putting the piece of potato on the floor or licking the box, and being spied on seems to be a reminder of our desires and a result of reaching some boundary or other.
The visitor then takes the black box which s/he has licked and sprinkled with flour through an arrangement of bottles filled with cones of flour. Then, again following instructions,s/he chooses a place at eye-level on the wall in which to put the box. As far as the visitor is concerned the action is already over. Meanwhile, there is a continuation in the changes taking place in the exhibition.
Our analysis could possibly finish here, feeling that there was nothing logical or repetitive at all in the piece. In participating in each process, the visitor can in fact bring about changes in the work, and at the same time made aware of certain irreducible strange feeling. We can regard this as an action brought about half by chance. However, we hope in the risk of applying the violence of interpretation, to know a little about the possible meanings represented by these objects and whether or not there is anything logical at all about this “narrative” piece. From what we have seen of her previous pieces, we can suppose that, regardless of how hidden their forms, there should be some type of repetition present.
In fact, if we are to objectively understand the fact that the meaning contained in these “objects” are multiple meanings, then we have to start with an analysis of their various parts. We can have a slightly clearer idea of “an object's meaning” by looking at other objects linked to it and a few of the repeated relationships between these objects.
Let's first have a look at the repeated parts hidden within the piece's ‘narrative section”:
(1) The pieces of potato( which could be seeds used for further planting )seem as though they can be taken upstairs and put into the black boxes. However the boxes are replaced by the barren marble floor.
(2) From the pieces of potato that will finally dry up in the concrete floor, back to the act of cutting the potato with a knife and its relationship to the black boxes, an images of death seems to be silently associating itself with these same black boxes.
(3) The visitor is only able to use saliva to moisten the outside of the boxes. Therefore ,there is an intriguing relationship of repetition and complement between (1)and(3).
(4) The sprinkling of flour onto the wet part of the black boxes could be a repetition of or complement to( 1) and( 3 )or the image of death in( 2). It is necessary for us to say a little more about this situation. (a) The use of saliva to moisten the black box and the subsequent act of sprinkling flour led to the visitor being spied on. From this we can see this act as desire. (b )In the last space encountered , flour is put into the bottles . However, this action is not completed by the visitor, because it has already been done by somebody else. This is an expression of the objects of one’s desires, and also that of the content of some taboo or other.
(5) We can finally come across anther, even less obvious repetition. There seems to be a similarity between placing the black boxes at eye-level and being spied on by the video camera. The difference between the two is the fact that with one, one is being looked at by somebody else's eye, while with the other one , it is one's own eyes that are doing the viewing. Seen from the perspective of the image of death present in the black boxes, these boxes now arranged in rows on the wall have become either coffins or urns , and the scattering of flour on top of them has been designated as the earth that one scatters in a grave.
Judging by these “similarities in form” and “relationships in the coordination between Objects”, one can discover two groups of objects and symbols.
(1) The piece of potato<> the seed image<>the image of a corpse( the pieces of potato, dissected and gradually drying out)<> saliva <>cone –shaped piles of floor<> earth<> the decaying and formless flour.
(2) The black boxes<> the concrete floor in which it is impossible to plant the pieces of potato<> the transparent box containing the potatoes<> the bottles of flour <>the eyes looking at the visitor <>coffins<> urns<> intimate part of the body.
Perhaps we might be able to class the relationships between symbols in the two groups into the relationships between“ body” and “body” and between “desire” and “death”. Here taboo and holding oneself back make their presence felt throughout. In connection with these types of contradictions, we can take a look at the performance presented by Tang Huang-Chen for the occasion of Hou Jun-Ming's wedding . She Arranged a series of black and white photographs of the bride on a wall, and then repeatedly pasted sticky flour onto the pictures’eyes and mouth. The flour is no longer situated next to some neutral container , but is liked to the erotic zones of the body, or at least with the sensitive parts, and because of its proximity to the body’s genitals has turned into “the material of desire”. Desire and death are placed next to each other , a wedding, black and white photographs , flour ,a feeling of sacrificing to the dead and a sadistic eroticism.
From the analysis given above ,it seems as though we can regard her “narratives” as a lifelong, unendingly repeated absurdity, a futile exertion. Included are the suppression of desire, frustrations, and surreptitious enjoyment . Desire, taboo, and death are constantly tangled up together
Perhaps some people might be inclined to regard this “narrative” as unintentional, as linear without repetition. However, I am inclined to divide it into a few important stages, either different in nature with similar layouts, or identical with different layouts, mutually interfering, or mutually complementing or reinforcing. The fair amount of similarity between the piece's various different parts and symbols results in a certain harmony filtering through and forming an integral presence in the whole work.
If the viewer only participates once in this exhibition, then I'm afraid they won't get some feeling of “repetition of forms” from it, but rather the impression that this is all unintentional. In this article , I have tried to approach the exhibition from its “narrative time” and “model of existential space”. From the standpoint of the symbols used, we are able to see the multiple meanings of the metaphors. From an even wider viewpoint, it has a great amount if interchange of categories, a mutual penetration of discursive and life. However, its repetitive character is still faintly visible here and there. (Artist Magazine 1994 8) |
