Chen Chieh-Jen, Rebirth I – Twelve Karmas Under the City (2000), Cibachrome print [Centre A, Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Vancouver, BCB, thru Apr 27, 2003]
Chen Chieh-Jen and Yuan Goang-Ming: “InvisibleCity”
Centre A, Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
Vancouver BC thru Apr 27, 2003
Centre A, Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, BC thru Apr 27 – Centre A’s largest international exhibition to date, curated by Vancouver critic Amy Cheng Huei-Hua, features the work of Taiwan artists Chen Chieh-Jen and Yuan Goang-Ming. Both artists are critical of a future that reduces the progress of civilization to multi-national economic expansion, intense competition and technological advancement. They use technology as their mixing board to produce emotionally stark and desolate scenes of human beings in danger of invisibility.
Chen Chieh-Jen has become an important international artist through representation in the Taipei Biennial, Sao Paulo Biennial, Venice Biennale, the Biennale de Lyon and the Kwangju Biennale. His large-format photographic series, Twelve Karmas Under the City, consists of shocking photographs depicting pre-arranged scenes of naked people in an underground station.The very real bodies have metal pieces, computer wiring and cameras inserted in them. The underground corridors of the stations represent a repressed “middle state”, a dark zone in history.
Yuan Goang-Ming is a pioneer of video and digital art in Taiwan. His work combines symbolism and technology to explore notions of contemporary existence. For this exhibit, Goang-Ming creates a piece titled City Disqualified. He took hundreds of photographs of a busy Tokyo intersection, then erased the people and cars one by one. The final video installation is an animated presentation in which the continuity of time is broken up and human presence is eliminated.
