This article was downloaded by: [McMaster University]On: 18 December 2014, At: 15:40Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Visual Art PracticePublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjvp20

‘The Return of the Real’: Art andIdentity in Taiwan's Public sphereWei-Hsiu Tungab

a 国立台南大学b National University of TainanPublished online: 03 Jan 2014.

To cite this article: Wei-Hsiu Tung (2012) ‘The Return of the Real’: Art and Identity in Taiwan'sPublic sphere, Journal of Visual Art Practice, 11:2-3, 157-172

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jvap.11.2-3.157_1

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

157

JVAP 11 (2+3) pp. 157–172 Intellect Limited 2012

Journal of Visual Art Practice Volume 11 Numbers 2 & 3

© 2012 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/jvap.11.2-3.157_1

Keywords

Taiwanart in the public

Sphereartistic interventionsocially engaged art

practicecommunity

wei-Hsiu Tung 国立台南大学National University of Tainan

‘The return of the real’: Art

and identity in Taiwan’s

Public sphere

“回归真实” 台湾公共领域中的艺术与认同

AbsTrAcT

This essay explores the extent to which various art practices in the public sphere in Taiwan constitute a significant body of critical interventions into community life.

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 157 9/6/12 9:22:28 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

Wei-Hsiu Tung

158

关键词台湾公共领域的艺术艺术干预社会参与式艺术社区

摘要本文探讨了台湾公共领域中的艺术实践在何种程度上构成了对社区生活进行批判性干预的主体。

inTroducTion

In Taiwan, public art has become increasingly important since the aboli-tion of martial law in 1987. Thereafter artistic interventions into the public sphere became a major focus for cultural criticism in Taiwan and, in particular, challenges to established conceptions of Taiwanese identity. Typically, public art produced in Taiwan since the early 1990s – including public art projects, off-site exhibitions and artist-in-residence schemes in both urban and rural areas – has sought to explore the diverse significance of Taiwanese culture rather than an exclusively Chinese identity and ideology. As a consequence of this intervention, the relationship between artists and viewers in Taiwan has been changed fundamentally.

The abolition of martial law marked a major political and cultural shift in Taiwanese society, which was up to then anti-democratic, Chinese dominated and preoccupied with the ideology of the People’s Republic of China. Prior to 1987 censorship was common practice both in the art world and politics. Many artists as a result chose to live and work overseas where they could fully enjoy freedom of expression. For those artists, western modernism became a safe haven.

To begin, this article will attempt to give an account of the ways in which art in the public sphere – i.e. ‘new genre public art’, ‘dialogical art practice’ and ‘socially engaged art practice’ – can be understood to constitute a body of crit-ical interventions into the life of communities that are akin to dialogues both in terms of their processes and effects. The article will then go on analyse the development of public art in Taiwan by discussing a selection of case studies, including art projects, off-site exhibitions and artist-in-residence schemes, all of which have encouraged local communities to enter into a closer trans-formative relationship with their immediate surroundings. Artistic interven-tions in the public sphere in Taiwan since 1987 have not only been a medium for artistic production, their transformative power has also sought to connect to, and involve a wider audience in cultural creativity; a process where the production of art becomes the expression of community life.

going Public: TAiwAnese ArT AfTer THe revoKing of mArTiAl lAw

The lifting of martial law in Taiwan in 1987 and its wider social, political and environmental impact triggered a widespread reflective reaction among the Taiwanese people. The impact was particularly apparent in the tide of artistic development. Immediately after 1987, artistic expression consisted largely of highly ideological works made in protest against the official politi-cal system. Their expressive form, their socio-political topics, and the cultural taboos with which they engaged made transparent the shift in Taiwan’s over-all climate. Artists began to be aware of and to be concerned about the gap between artists, society and tradition. Through discussions in the media, including newspapers and art journals, as well as at exhibitions and academic colloquia,1 numerous questions were raised about the identity of Taiwanese

1. The most important and representative art journals in Taiwan at this time were The Artists and Lion Art. The editor of Lion Art was the first to focus on debates relating to Taiwanese art.

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 158 9/6/12 9:22:29 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

‘The Return of the Real’

159

artists. The issue of how to interpret and understand the world from a truly Taiwanese standpoint became mainstream thinking in art circles. As a conse-quence of the rapid political and social transformations that began to take place in Taiwan at the end of the 1980s, many artists adopted a conscious strategy of dialogue between art, the people and society (Tsai 1996: 22–43).

Following the Kuomintang’s (the ruling Taiwanese nationalist party’s) decision to lift martial law, contemporary Taiwanese artists became caught up in and confused by complex power struggles involving competing political factions. These power struggles in addition to the Taiwanese people’s vigorous efforts to gain independence and the right to self-government, contributed gradually to the politicization of issues of local cultural identity. The politically charged question of whether Taiwan should or should not unite with the People’s Republic of China became inescapably entangled with that of the survival of an independent multi-ethnic Taiwanese cultural identity.

As the process of democratization has developed in Taiwan over the last quarter of a century, public opinion has been increasingly at the centre of debates surrounding the future direction of Taiwanese society. The increas-ing centrality of public opinion has brought Taiwanese artists closer to the Taiwanese people, not only absolving them of the need to emulate inter-national trends, but also allowing them to begin, in earnest, to examine the relationship between their work and the immediate context of its production and reception on Taiwanese soil. During the 1990s, an increasing number of Taiwanese artists began to sense the importance of locating their work and its cultural references more closely in relation to native Taiwanese culture and of being more directly involved with local Taiwanese audiences. In this way, Taiwanese artists were able to stand firm in confronting international art trends and in achieving the uniqueness of Taiwanese art. The future task of contem-porary art in Taiwan became rooted in shortening the distance between artists and local audiences. The task of artists was to use artistic practices to commu-nicate with audiences in as direct a way as possible. The potential of art in the public sphere in this respect is undeniable and has been readily accepted by artists, non-official art organizations, and the governmental Council of Cultural Affairs.

The theme of the 1996 Taipei Biennial Exhibition was ‘Quest for Identity’. This theme was intended to signify the search for identity and memory as well as the active dialogue that was by then taking place between society and artists in Taiwan. Works selected for the exhibition typically sought to document aspects of Taiwanese life and/or related socio-political issues. The exhibition acted as a focus for the exploration of Taiwanese identity, which started to be presented as ambiguous or hybrid after the revocation of martial law. The quest for identity in Taiwan has not been confined to a closed circle of specialists and professionals. It has been an all-encompassing movement that has brought about social cohesion and community empowerment. It has also given a sense of self-determination to the people of Taiwan.

Within Taiwan, there is an established view, profoundly influenced by Confucianism, that artists should contribute constructively to the building of society and devote themselves to people and politics. The following statement by the art educator Ann Kao’s illustrates this point: ‘The proper weight and status of individual creation are most clearly apparent when art works are viewed within the corpus of cumulative, collective, artistic tradition’ (Kao 2000: 259). During the period of social change that followed the revocation of martial law, Taiwanese artists were therefore expected to adopt a position of social and

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 159 9/6/12 9:22:29 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

Wei-Hsiu Tung

160

political responsibility. Within Taiwan many artists also work as art educators. Their contribution and devotion to education have to a greater or lesser extent influenced Taiwanese society for many decades. This is arguably different from the position of western artists, whose established role as part of the unfolding of modernity has been that of detached socio-cultural critic.

ArT in THe Public sPHere And ‘new genre Public ArT’

If we understand art in the public sphere to be part of an unstable and shift-ing set of political, social, economic and material relations, and locality as something both produced and shaped by an immanent (contemporaneous) set of cultural, social, political, economic and historical conditions, our experi-ence of public works of art must be characterized, as Claire Doherty suggests, by ‘a sense of dislocation – encouraging us no longer to look with the eyes of a tourist, but to become implicated in the jostling contingency of mobili-ties and relations that constitute contemporaneity’ (Doherty 2009: 18). Given this uncertain entanglement between public art and the immanent context of its production, how and where, then, does artistic engagement with the public sphere begin?

During the 1990s – which was the climax of socio-political debate within the Taiwanese art scene – there was an increasingly widespread desire to make art that would be displayed in public spaces rather than within the confines of galleries and museums. Within a Taiwanese context, this move towards the making of public art must be interpreted in part as a political act that sought to challenge the institutional censorship that was still prevalent at that time by claiming autonomy for the artist. The emergence of public art in Taiwan during the 1990s can therefore be interpreted as an attempt to chal-lenge discourses that had developed around art prior to the lifting of martial law (Lacy 1995). This marked the self-awakening of Taiwanese identity in art circles in contrast to monolithic Chinese ideology and also departing from the canons of western modernism.

The move towards the production and curating of public artworks in Taiwan during the 1990s is arguably representative of what Suzanne Lacy has referred to in her book Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art as ‘new genre public art’. Here, Lacy describes the core aim of new genre public art as ‘public engagement’. A range of similar terms are now commonly used within an international context – many of them interchangeably – including ‘dialogical art practice’, ‘civic art’, ‘community-based art’, ‘socially engaged art’, ‘relational aesthetics’ and ‘art in the public sphere’. As Lacy indicates, in recent years there has been a ‘worldwide exchange of practices, engagement from various theoretical perspectives, and blurred lines between field – and museum-based practices’ (Lacy 2008: 19).

As Grant Kaster has indicated, collaborative and interactive art practices directed towards the world beyond gallery walls can be viewed from a philo-sophical perspective as ‘linking new forms of intersubjective experience with social or political activism’ (Kaster 2004: 9). This ‘dialogical aesthetics’ can therefore be viewed, Kaster argues, as a mode of practice and perception that facilitates dialogue and exchange, and that is experienced by both artists and audiences very often in relation to community-based and socially engaged artistic practices.

The notion of ‘art in the public sphere’ that spread throughout Taiwan from the 1990s onwards also relates to what Jane Rendell has described as

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 160 9/6/12 9:22:29 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

‘The Return of the Real’

161

2. The Practice of Public Art (Rendell 2008) includes essays by artists, critics and academics who refer to works made in the public realm not as public art but as: ‘interventions’, ‘socially engaged art practice’, ‘political activism’, ‘service art’, ‘site-specific works’, ‘community art projects’, ‘spatial practice’, ‘interdisciplinary activism’, ‘contextual practice’ and ‘social practice art’. Here Rendell argues that ‘[o]nly public art administrators and officials seem willing to use the term public art to describe municipal, county and state government programs’ (Cartiere and Willis in Rendell 2008: 33).

‘critical spatial practices’. According to Rendell, the term ‘off-site/site-specific curatorial practices’ (Cartiere and Willis in Rendell 2008: 33) is more apposite to the notion of ‘critical spatial practices’ than the term ‘public art’.2

During that time, critical spatial practices were adopted by many artists and curators whose approaches were interdisciplinary, performative and process-based. Such approaches to the production of art emerged at a time when the political climate was changing and when artists and curators began to take on board ideas of intervention and socially engaged practice commensurate with Lacy’s identification of ‘new genre public art’ as well as Kester’s conception of ‘dialogical aesthetics’. As researcher and curator Lu Pei Yi has indicated,

[…] the emergence of the boom in off-site art in the 1990s could be seen as a complex and peculiar phenomenon that reflects Taiwanization and that also became part of the process of Taiwanization.

(Lu 2010: 13)

Going ‘off-site’ and, what is more, engaging with local communities to produce art was perceived to have much more potential in terms of ‘criticality’ vis-à-vis the prevailing socio-political reality in Taiwan than producing art within the confines of the art studio or exhibiting art in conventional white cube spaces such as museums and galleries. By shifting the ground of artistic production in this way artists were able to speak out about the changing political situation and to do so through direct engagement with and involvement of the public.

Among the outcomes of these socially engaged artistic practices is a demonstration of the uncertain boundary between artistic production and reception. As Simon Sheikh has argued,

[…] contemporary art practices have shown that neither the work nor the spectator can be formally defined and fixed, we have also come to realize that the conception of a public sphere, the arena in which one meet and engage, is likewise dematerialized and/or expanded. We no longer conceive of the public sphere as an entity, as one location and/or formation as suggested in Jürgen Habermas’ famous description of bour-geois public sphere.

(Sheikh 2009: 137–41)

In Sheikh’s view, art in the public sphere is therefore characterized by a ‘relation-ality and negotiation’ that makes it inescapably plural (Sheikh 2009: 137–41). This has certainly characterized Taiwanese public art of the last two decades, which has undergone a complex process of multiple transformations typical of the wider socio-cultural and political landscape of Taiwan’s post-martial law era. The mutation of Taiwanese art started with a rethink of what constitutes Taiwanese identity through artistic production, display, social intervention and audience participation taking place in a myriad of social spaces and local communities.

recenT cAses of Public ArT PrAcTices in TAiwAn

Since the late 1990s, the National Arts and Cultural Foundation (a major government funding body in Taiwan), has acknowledged that projects and exhibitions outside the museum space have been increasingly welcomed by the general public. What has ensued is a tendency by the government to use

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 161 9/6/12 9:22:29 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

Wei-Hsiu Tung

162

3. This is a translation from the Chinese ‘She Qu Zong Te Yin Zao’, which is the name of a cultural policy that has been promoted by the Taiwanese Council of Cultural Affairs since 1993. The idea behind this policy is community empowerment. Although, as a result, numerous local history and culture organizations as well as local museums were built with local natural features and historical references, it became associated with local cultural organizations of the 1990s and was thus criticized for not focusing enough on community empowerment.

4. Lu-gang has a historic temple dedicated to a Buddhist Goddess known Ma-Zu. The temple is the centre of the local people’s life in this community.

art, or artistic projects, as ‘instruments’ to solve local problems and contro-versial issues and/or as a way to showcase achievements brought about by the ‘Community Integrating Construction’ policy.3 Unfortunately, the results have not always met expectations and these strategies have often proved to be unsustainable as a way of supporting local developments.

The ‘Heart of History Outdoor Installation Art Exhibition’, which took place in Lu-gang (an important conservation town in Taiwan with a signifi-cant and historic religious community) in 1999 is, perhaps, the most contro-versial of Taiwan’s government supported community art projects.4 The exhibition involved an attempt to revitalize and stimulate the general public’s imagination of historic spaces, as well as to broaden the local people’s vision of the future development of Lu-gang. However, attempts to create a dialogue with local people through events scheduled as part of the one-year exhibi-tion triggered numerous conflicts and frictions with and within a commu-nity that had never experienced such an outdoor installation exhibition in the place where they lived. At the root of the problem was the failure of artists involved in the project to avoid offending local cultural and religious beliefs. For example, artworks referring to the Buddhist goddess Ma-Zu were inter-preted as an attempt to represent the owners of a temple dedicated to the goddess as greedy; while another work, entitled Wake up, Lu-gang involved open criticism of the religious superstitions of local people.

This insensitivity on the part of participating artists was sharply criticized by Chen Wen-Pin (a local intellectual) in two articles: ‘A Heart transplant by an outsider or artistic violence’ and ‘Wake up, artists’. In these articles, Chen argued that the artists involved in the ‘Heart of History’ exhibition, surrounded as they were by an aura of professionalism and savoir-faire, had tried to ‘educate’ the residents of Lu-gang and that this implied contempt for the local residents. In a similar vein, Lu Pei Yi saw in such attitudes an attempt to prop-agate ‘cultural hegemony’ (Lu 2010: 25), viewing this as the main cause of the tensions with local residents. In Lu’s opinion, what lay at heart of the fail-ure to introduce art into the local communities of Lu-gang was ‘the question of who had the right to speak for Lu-gang: the artist or local residents, and further […] what kind of attitude an artist should have’ (Lu 2010: 25). In case of Lu-gang, an attempt to establish mutual communication between artists and local people failed in spite of the former’s attempts to engage with the latter and to establish dialogues. The project was intended to be collaborative in its involvement of professionals from the art world as well as scholars in the life of Lu-gang; but no artists or curators from the local community were invited to participate and local people were insufficiently engaged through art education events and workshops before and during the exhibition. As a consequence, the task allocated to the artists who were invited to participate in the Lu-gang event as ‘outsiders’ became impossible to complete.

As a year-long off-site event, the Heart of History Outdoor Installation Art Exhibition triggered vigorous and sustained discussions and dissensions in the Taiwanese press. In spite of the many arguments between participating artists and the local community, the exhibition process helped the Taiwanese artistic community to re-think its stance towards the production of art within public spaces in a more constructive way. The conflicts and criticisms sparked off by the Lu-gang exhibition, including differences in outlook relating to reli-gious belief, prompted the Taiwanese art world to look carefully at potential problems arising as a result of artistic intervention into public spaces and local communities (Huang 2007: 20). Lu-gang provided artists and curators

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 162 9/6/12 9:22:29 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

‘The Return of the Real’

163

with a more sophisticated understanding of art practice in the public sphere, the ensuing potential for controversy and the necessity for an acute sense of collective responsibility when intervening into communities.

Since the 1990s artists and curators working within the context of the international art world have also become more aware of the potential conse-quences of working with audiences and participating in the public life of local communities. As Claire Bishop has indicated in her book Participation,

[…] the three concerns – activations; authorship; community – are the most frequently cited motivations for almost all artistic attempts to encourage participation in art […] The first concerns the desire to create an activate subject, one who will be empowered by the expe-rience of physical and symbolic participation. The hope is that the newly-emancipated subjects of participation will find themselves able to determine their own social and political reality.

(Bishop 2006: 12)

Despite the controversial involvement of art in the public sphere in Taiwan during late 1990s, many projects undertaken since the turn of the millen-nium have proved to be more fruitful to communities and local areas. This is precisely because curators and artists began, in the wake of Lu-gang, to work more closely with local people who were empowered to contribute and give shape to creative meaning. Authorship was no longer the exclusive property of professionals from the art world. Instead, it was shared with local commu-nities, thereby engendering a new sense of collective responsibility.

Within Taiwan, certain types of urban regeneration have tended to fall within the range of public art practice. There are, as one might expect, cases where collaborative projects involving curators and artists in the regeneration of a city have been instrumentalized to the sole benefit of the commissioner, be it an individual or a political party. However, this was not the case with regard to the temporary public art project entitled ‘Beautiful New World: Hai-an Road Art Intervention Project’, which took place between 2004 and 2005 in the city of Tainan – the first capital of Taiwan established before the Japanese colonial period since 1895. The project was aimed at transforming an area that had been ruined by a succession of mistaken government planning decisions. Consultations with local people together with interventions by art world professionals succeeded in turning Hai-an Road into an area favoured both by local residents and tourists.

Tainan is well known for its long history, which is reflected by Hai-an Road with its rich mixture of historical sites, ancient features and temples – the majority of which are Daoist – many of which date back to the Ching Dynasty (1644–1912) of the Chinese empire (Manchu, seventeenth century). During the Japanese colonial period, the Second World War and the post-war period up until the 1980s, Hai-an Road was used as a commercial centre. After the 1980s, it went rapidly into decline and was partly demolished. During the 1990s, a plan for the comprehensive renovation of Hai-an Road was approved. However, because of parochial political rivalries, this plan was rejected by the new mayor. In Taiwan, the development of public space, more than any other cultural undertaking, suffers directly from sectarian politics and the pitiful drive for power.

Local curator Du Zhao Xian could see how frustrating and even painful this setback was for the residents and shopkeepers of Hai-an Road. Local

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 163 9/6/12 9:22:29 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

Wei-Hsiu Tung

164

people became infuriated by the situation and many started to think that the area would never be returned to anything like its former state. The Hai-an Road art project that Du implemented proved that this view was mistaken. Artists were invited to install their works directly onto the façades of half-demolished houses and in free spaces by the sides of the road. They were encouraged to make site-specific works reflecting, from their own perspective, aspects of local memory, history, and the particular atmosphere of the road. Some artists also set out to offer a critical commentary on ill-devised govern-ment policies by producing works that sought to engage local residents and passers-by, inviting them to put forward their own opinions and to develop their own vision for the future.

Consider here, for example, Wu Mali’s work The Road is Carved by Man (Figure 1), which presented the portrait of an imaginary person in a heroic style, made through a computerized synthesis of images of three former mayors of Tainan, accompanied by the words ‘The Road is Carved by Man’ set out on the work’s plinth. The obvious irony and humour of this work were intended to act as a critique of Tainan’s patriarchal politics and the failure of local politicians to sustain their promises for the benefit of the city’s residents. Another example is the installation Discovering Hai-an Road by the artist Chen Shun-Chu (Figure 2). This installation involved the making of space for local residents to present photographs expressing their personal perspectives and feelings about Hai-an Road. To encourage people to do so, the artist estab-lished a photography award entitled ‘Discovering Hai-an Road’. The partici-pants’ photographs were displayed on the façades of houses.

The Hai-an Road art project was not just about displaying public art on the street. It also involved a series of interviews with local residents, civic forums

Figure 1: Wu Mali, The Road is Carved by Man, 2004; mixed media installation. Photograph by the author.

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 164 9/6/12 9:22:34 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

‘The Return of the Real’

165

5. See official site of National culture and arts Foundation of Taiwanese government, Creative ABC: community art, http://www.ncafroc.org.tw/abc/community-content.asp?ser_no=183. Accessed 21 June 2011.

on the street, conferences on public art and even street parties. The project brought the declining street back to life, strengthening the self-identity and image of the local community. It is a clear example of an artistic interven-tion into public space within Taiwan that inspired local people to contemplate and reflect on their individual and collective histories and memories with the aim of re-empowering the local community beyond political parochialism and sectarianism.

The Hai-an Road project is by no means the earliest example of an attempt to stimulate local dialogue through temporary artistic intervention into public space within Taiwan. In 1994 and 1995, the art critic and artist Ni Tsai-Chin organized an environmental art festival in the suburbs of Taiwan’s capital city, Taipei. The intention behind the festival was to set up off-site art exhibitions that would bring Taiwanese art ‘into dialogue’ with local space and audiences. In doing so, Ni wanted to open up an ‘oriental’ form of dialogue with nature different from that associated with western conceptions of environmental art or landscape art that was also intended as a way of bringing art face-to-face with viewers (Lu 2010: 16–17).

Since 2002, other similar public art festivals have sprung up in and around the city of Taipei. Many of these events have sought to develop a dialogical ethos in recognition of the greater potential for public discussion that stems from the critical issues raised by site-specific and time-specific artworks. As a result, art world professionals and audiences have come together to contem-plate and reflect on the urban environments within which they dwell.5 Curator and scholar John Lin Hong has observed that from the 1990s onwards, the expression of ‘locality’ in contemporary Taiwanese art has not only shifted ‘from exhibition space to social (public) space’ but also ‘from content to context’ (Lin2006 : 73). This has meant that artists and curators have been

Figure 2: Chen Shun-Chu, Discovering Hai-an Road, 2004; mixed media installation Photograph by the author.

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 165 9/6/12 9:22:38 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

Wei-Hsiu Tung

166

made to address issues that go beyond the technical challenges of on-site and off-site undertakings including complex questions relating to cultural diversity, cross-national perspectives and localizations. Moreover, art world profession-als have been exposed to the views of audiences whose perspectives often stem from complex socio-political and cultural conditions.

The production of art in public spaces in Taiwan has therefore not been focused on the making of landscapes composed of aesthetic objects or the exhibiting of sculptures as finished products in public spaces. The concept of public art in Taiwan has shifted its paradigm – it is now primarily about exposing power structures through processes of questioning and the opening-up of conversations between different individuals, communities and cultures. The meaning of art in this context derives from its relational qualities; that is to say, from the way it relates to an environment or a context, be it natural, social, cultural or simply human (Lin2006: 73). Relational art of this sort cannot be thought of as absolute. Such thinking is echoed in art critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud’s celebrated notion of ‘relational aesthetics’ (2002) as well as in Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of the art world as ‘a space of objective relations between positions’ (i.e. a field defined by power plays and struggles whereby producers strive to preserve or transform such a world) (2002: 26). This ‘relational’ dimension is essential to art in the public sphere (Bourriaud 2002: 26–27).

If we regard art in the public sphere in Taiwan as a quiet revolution that has echoed the changing political climate and transformed the country’s human and environmental landscapes, we can discern two distinctive peri-ods in its development. Until the 1990s there was more demand for the kind of social activism that takes account of the context of art, thus challenging both the socio-political ideology surrounding the autonomy of art and the conventional notion of ‘art for art’s sake’. However, in year 2000 the opposi-tion Democratic Progressive Party (DDP) won the Taiwanese general elec-tion, bringing a new political vision for the future of Taiwan. Grassroots culture became an essential focus for questions of national identity, replacing the Kuomintang’s preoccupation with the question of a possible reunification with Mainland China and the military tension in the Taiwan Strait. Even though artists and curators remained strongly in favour of ideas of social intervention and making art in the public sphere, they gradually adapted a more dialogical approach thereby bringing into play more educative experi-ences inducing participatory creativity involving wider audiences. Cultural dialogue could thus contribute to social transformation while engaging directly with communities. In comparison with previous forms of artistic activism, the latter development enabled the contemplation of community-related issues of identity through the recalling of collective memories, local histories and narratives.

There are numerous practices in contemporary art that derive from every-day life and socio-political issues. Once art departs from traditional models and begins to merge into the everyday manifestations of society, artists not only make art for themselves but also anticipate intervening in, and subverting/transforming established social structures. In addition, engage-ment and collaboration between artists and their audiences become preferred approaches artists working in the public sphere. In this way, the field of contemporary art is able to expand into society and communities beyond the limits of art institutions and the museum/gallery system. This is akin to Joseph Beuys’ conception of art practice expounded in his ‘theory of social sculpture’

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 166 9/6/12 9:22:38 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

‘The Return of the Real’

167

6. The Hakka people (literally ‘guest families’ or ‘guest people’; Hakka language: Hak-kâ), also known as Hakka Han, are Han Chinese who speak the Hakka language and originate from the provinces of Guangdong, Jiangxi and Fujian in mainland China. Their ancestors were often said to have arrived from central China 2000 years ago.

(Mesch and Michely 2007). In Beuys’s view, artists have the capacity to trans-form society by the very ideas embodied in their art practices and their public performances (de Domizio Durini 1997).

Such a view demands that curators and critics play a vital part in the making of art – its conception and realization – within the public sphere. It is precisely when art moves outside the studio and institutional exhibition space and becomes a process that it is truly capable of involving the commu-nity. It is when art acts as a negotiating force in the face of institutions; when it responds to social dynamics by addressing the needs of others; and when it shows its collaborative and inter-disciplinary nature, that it proves to be a meaningful open-ended and fluid relational phenomenon.

Ideas of ‘local fever’, locale, location, locality and place are becoming increasingly important in the public sphere in Taiwan. The Rice Storage Artists’ Community in Ping-Tong, a southern county of Taiwan, is a clear example of how art practice and exhibitions can be inspired by local commu-nity life. This community project was initiated by a group of artists who set up a residence scheme in the village of Chu-Tein in 1999. The project ended with an exhibition in Spring 2001, entitled ‘Land Debate’, in which 23 artists (seven locals and sixteen ‘outsiders’) took part. The main theme of the show was ‘land and people’ (Lee 2001: 15). Traditional Taiwanese art has often focused on this topic in relation to a historically agricultural society within Taiwan where land and people have always been closely knit. The ‘Land Debate’ exhibition used a rice storage space to highlight the local culture and history of Chu-Tein. Aspects of Taiwanese vernacular culture were thus brought to light on its home soil by both local and inter-national artists.

The activities of artists belonging to the Rice Storage Artists’ Community reflects the culture of the Hakka people, a Han Chinese community who are thought to have migrated to Taiwan from continental China some 2000 years ago.6 Hakka culture is associated with an agricultural tradition that places strong emphasis on the value of hard work; a tradition that has not altered significantly despite rapid social changes in Taiwan in recent decades. Following the industrialization of Taiwan during the late twentieth century, urbanization became more widespread and the relationship between Taiwanese people and the land became more complicated. The exhibition ‘Land Debate’ attempted to go beyond a straightforward display of contem-porary representations of the land by opening up space for a more creative exploration of vernacular Taiwanese culture; one that celebrated the specificity of local Taiwanese culture as well as differences between Taiwanese art and that produced elsewhere. As the organizing curator of ‘Land Debate’, Lee Chun Hsien stated at the time of the exhibition,

It is believed that the pleading for such resourceful development of art should be promoted, and it is a critical point of time for the develop-ment of new art in Taiwan.

(Lee 2001: 22)

A key aspect of ‘Land Debate’ was that artists were given the opportunity to reflect on their own individual cultural identities and on that of Taiwan as a whole in the midst of the internationalization of art, economic globaliza-tion and the inescapable otherness of culture. Only in this way could cultural diversity be truly achieved.

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 167 9/6/12 9:22:38 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

Wei-Hsiu Tung

168

7. Taken from an interview conducted by the author with the artist Chang Sin-Pi in 2002 as part of fieldwork relating to the Rice Storage Artists’ Community.

As Suzanne Lacy has made clear, attempts ‘to reframe an extensive body of work’ as part of interventionist projects such as ‘Land Debate’ suggest that the new genre of public art is,

[…] not only about subject matter, and not only about placement or site for art, but also about the aesthetic expression of activated value systems.

(Lacy 1995: 30)

The activation of such value systems as part of ‘Land Debate’ is strongly evidenced by statements made by the curators, artists and locals involved in protracted negotiations relating to the project. Consider here, for example, a description of the process leading up to the staging of ‘Land Debate’ by the artist Chang Sin-Pi:

In the beginning, no one could believe what we were doing. No one could believe it when they saw what we created in this quiet isolated village. We went through a lot of negotiations, misunderstandings, debates, and even at times arguments with the local people. But in the end the local residents (many of whom were farmers) started to under-stand our ‘artistic language’ and creative vision; they became aware of the difference it could make in their daily routine and could appreciate what artists have to say.7

Ultimately, the Rice Storage Artists’ Community proved to be very skilful and successful in gaining the trust of local residents and in integrating local power structures into the project. In an essay he wrote on the ‘Land Debate’ exhibition, the exhibition’s curator Lee concluded:

The Rice Storage Artists’ Community has had a meaningful impact by following the original purpose of art in a timely fashion and at the right place. Besides the fact that local artists from southern Taiwan have reflected in their art what distinguishes this part of the island from the Taipei area, the work undertaken in the Rice Storage Artists’ Community addresses the issue of how abandoned spaces can be re-used by art and how this process can tell the story of the develop-ment of Taiwan’s rural communities.

(Lee 2001: 33)

The changes sparked off by artists in this village setting were not just about resurfacing the history of the place and highlighting the North/South bipolar-ized art debate in Taiwan. The real achievement of the Rice Storage Artists’ Community was to have lifted the barriers between artists and society by making the effort to bring the public fully into play in the making of artworks. In other words, what this artistic residency achieved was to make art attractive, relevant and relational.

In more recent years, art in the public sphere in Taiwan has become a fertile ground for interdisciplinary collaborations between, amongst others, art professionals, activists, architects, urban planners, scholars, educators and civil servants. Art professionals have had to adapt themselves by playing different roles at the same time. Artists involved in public art projects have often ended up initiating and curating socially engaged works. Wu Mali’s project, Art as

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 168 9/6/12 9:22:38 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

‘The Return of the Real’

169

Environment – A cultural Action on the Tropic of Cancer (2005–2007) invited over 30 artists to take up residences in twenty different villages in the Cha-Yi county of Taiwan. The project relied on public art’s binding potential to forge a community consciousness in spite of the complexity of local issues at stake. In their jointly authored article ‘When community residents become artists: The discourse of im-position and dis-position’ (Wu in Chen 2007: 106–15). Wu and her co-curator Chen Hon Yi suggested that public art practices and the working of artists in communities constitute a process of transformation – like a ‘fluid energy’ flowing into the life of people who offer on-site resources with interactions and exchanges (Wu in Chen2007: 107). Here, artistic inter-vention is not thought of as an aggressive invasion of communities; nor is creativity considered the exclusive privilege of artists. In Wu and Chen’s view, art professionals from whatever fields should always bear in mind that public art practices and community-based projects are above all educating processes that foster social links amongst people. Moreover, this form of art education is by no means a ‘give and take’ authoritative pedagogy. Art professionals and their audiences must relate to each other on a dialogical basis and the working process must be mutually participatory.

curAToriAl sTrATegies for criTicAl sPATiAl PrAcTices

In Taiwan, curators started to work independently – that is to say, outside officially supported institutional structures – from the mid-1990s onwards. This is also when the idea of creative curatorship emerged within Taiwan (Chen 2010: 35). Curatorial approaches are paramount for art in the public sphere. The questions then emerges as to whether the curatorial systems that were refined following the abolition of martial law in 1987 to support site-specific artistic engagement truly acknowledge the conflictual and changing nature of public space, and whether those curatorial strategies offer an alternative to the exhausted notion of ‘public art’ in terms of criti-cal practices.

The exhibition ‘The Heart of History’, curated by Huang Hai-Ming between 1998 and 1999, is one of the first examples of curatorial practice in Taiwan that brings art into the public sphere. Needless to say, this exhibition triggered controversies in the local community (Chen 2010: 35). In his book Everyday Works of Art in the City Street (Huang 2006), Huang recalls his work as an artist, art critic, educator and curator, including his curatorial respon-sibilities with socially engaged art of the late 1990s. Most interestingly, his reflection on ‘the appeal of art’ shows how art can awaken people to new ways of seeing their everyday life experiences. Here, Huang acknowledges that while art has the potential to create some sort of ‘carnival’ atmosphere, it is also likely to re-ignite – at least in the first instance – serious underlying social conflicts (Huang 2007: 20). As a curator, Huang was well aware that as part of community-based projects he should continue to stimulate audience participation, artistic experimentation and the questioning of assumptions. For Huang, the point of community-based working is,

to lead the whole process in the right direction and to integrate local people from different perspectives – the hidden ground for a project. As I gradually changed my role and way of curation, I started to realize this.

(Huang 2007: 21)

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 169 9/6/12 9:22:38 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

Wei-Hsiu Tung

170

According to curator Amy Chen, this period also corresponded with a time when art as a social intervention became a topic of discussion from a curato-rial perspective, with the effect that off-site curating has become increasingly popular since the mid-1990s. In her own words,

The intention is to bring art out of the museum, and the political implica-tions of interventions often arise through interaction after the exhibition is open to the public.

(Chen 2010: 35)

Recent curatorial strategies for developing art in the public sphere show a clear will to induce direct contact with people as well as cross-disciplinary integration to deal with problems of location and group differences such as gender, age, labour conditions or social status. In the past 30 years Taiwanese society has, according to Chen,

[…] evolved from extreme conservatism and repression to a celebration of liberation and of liberal relationships between a variety of art forms and society.

(Chen 2010: 37)

There is now a proper ‘inter-subjectivity’, so to speak, taking place as a proc-ess of democratization within communities, the art world and all its partici-pants (Chen 2010: 37). This is communication and mutual understanding at work, rather than a dualistic conflictual movement whereby art and people are brought into opposition with one other. This is also what makes possi-ble a healthy conception of national identity in the context of Taiwan, corresponding to Benedict Anderson’s notion of ‘imagined communities’ (Anderson 1983) – i.e. socially constructed communities that are ‘imagined’ by people who develop a sense of belonging. Art practice in the public sphere can therefore play a crucial role in fashioning that inter-subjectivity for the sake of re-imagining a new community.

beyond THe diAlecTics of locAlism And inTernATionAlism: THe reTurn of THe reAl

As Hal Foster has argued, the cult of ‘abjection’ signalled a generational reac-tion against an impasse in which art became embroiled in cultural conflict (Foster 1993). Foster suggests that an interest in abjection – i.e. that which is expelled from identity as an un-representable excess or reminder – led younger artists to break out of the left/right stalemate over identity politics in favour of what he called a ‘return of the real’. For Foster, avant-gardist practices and theories in the context of postmodernism are returning to the concrete realities of social life and bodily existence expressed in modernism. If the radicalism of the historical avant-garde failed, it has nonetheless allowed the postmodernist neo-avant-garde to critically engage with ‘social sites’ and ‘actual bodies’. Of course, the context of Taiwan is very different from that which Foster had in mind, i.e. twentieth-century western culture. At the same time, it is precisely by returning to the real, that is to say, to the concrete rela-tional elements that make communities what they are, that art in the public sphere can indeed help us build a sense of community. It is by making all of us reflect on how we relate to the past, how we plan our future and how

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 170 9/6/12 9:22:39 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

‘The Return of the Real’

171

8. The phrases ‘think globally, act locally’ and ‘think global, act local’ have been used in various contexts, including town planning, environmental planning and business development.

we handle present grassroots critical issues that art in the public sphere can contribute to the shaping of cultural identities. Interestingly, most artists’ prac-tices in the community art movements of the 1970s in the United Kingdom are echoed in this (contemporary) conception of art in the public sphere. This also applies to the public art debates that took place in America during the same period and that influenced significantly the 1990s Taiwanese artists who tried to challenge established customs.

As Carol Hanisch puts it, ‘the personal is political’ (Hanish 1970); to which one might add the notion of ‘thinking globally’ and ‘acting locally’8. This is precisely what art in the public sphere can achieve: it makes global, national and communal narratives accessible at local and personal levels. And just like many artists in the western world, Taiwanese public artists manage to bring people into conversation among themselves as much as with the outside world, with their histories and cultures, their social condition, as well as with gender and ethnic identities. In the context of Taiwan, returning to the real means that artists, curators and many other participants help to give shape to a sense of cultural community through questioning and self-reflection that goes beyond the ideologies of localism and internationalism, beyond the ideologies of authenticity and submission. This is what the public art practices of Taiwan have been able to achieve. They have developed a critique of anti-democratic politics and of the monolithic Chinese dominated view of Taiwanese identity that held sway before the revocation of martial law in 1987 and which still prevails in the People’s Republic of China.

references

Anderson, Benedict (1983), Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso.

Bishop, Claire (ed.) (2006), Participation, London and Cambridge, MA: Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press.

Bourriaud, Nicolas (2002), Relational Aesthetics, Paris: Les Presses du Réel.Chen, Amy (2010), ‘Return to society: The history and politics of art as social

intervention – a look at Taiwan’s four phases of development since the fall of martial law’, Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, 9: 28–39

Chen, Hon-Yi (2007), ‘When community residents become artists: The discourse of im-position and dis-position’, in Mali Wu (ed.), Art in the Public Sphere: Working in Community, Taipei: Yuan-Liou Publishing, pp. 106–15.

de Domizio Durini, Lucrezia (1997), The Felt Hat, Joseph Beuys A Life Told, Milan: Charta.

Doherty, Claire (ed.) (2009), Situation, London and Cambridge MA: Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press.

Foster, Hal (1993), The Return of the Real: The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century, Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

Hanish, Carol (1970), ‘The personal is political’, in Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt (eds), Notes From the Second Year: Women’s Liberation, New York: New York Radical Women. pp. 76–78

Huang, Hai-Ming (2006), Everyday Works of Art in the City Street, Taipei: National Taiwan Arts Education Center.

—— (2007), ‘Another way of curating interdisciplinary art festival: The tech-nique of collaboration between diverse artist communities and people’, in Mali Wu (ed.), Art in the Public Sphere: Working in Community, Taipei: Yuan-Liou Publishing. pp. 10–33

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 171 9/6/12 9:22:39 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014

Wei-Hsiu Tung

172

—— (2000), ‘Localisation, internationalisation, and art in Taiwan’, in Doug Boughton and Rachel Mason (eds), Beyond Multicultural Art Education: International Perspectives, New York: Waxmann. pp. 249–262

Kaster, Grant (2004), Conversation Pieces, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Lacy, Suzanne (ed.) (1995), Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art, San Francisco: Bay Press.

—— (2008), ‘Time on place: New genre public art a decade later’, in Cameron Cartiere and Shelly Willis (eds), The Practice of Public Art, London: Routledge. pp. 18–32

Lee, Chun Hsien (2001), ‘Exhibition essays’, in Pingtong Cultural Bureau (ed.), Land Dialogue exhibition catalogue, Pingtong: Pingtong Cultural Bureau, pp. 15–40

Lin, Hong Zhang (2006), Sinthome of Post-Contemporary Art: Writings on Locality, Taipei Art & Collection.

Lu, Pei Yi (2010), ‘Off-site art exhibitions as practice of “Taiwanization” in the 1990s’, Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, 9: 13–27

Mesch, Claudia and Michely, Viola (eds) (2007), Joseph Beuys: The Reader, London: I.B. Tauris.

Rendell, Jane (2008), ‘Space, place, and site in critical spatial arts practice’, in Cameron Cartiere and Shelly Willis (eds), The Practice of Public Art, London: Routledge. pp. 33–55

Sheikh, Simon (2009), ‘In the place of public sphere? Or, the world in frag-ments’, in Claire Doherty (ed.), Situation, London and Cambridge, MA: Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press, pp. 137–41.

Tsai, Hong-Ming (1996), ‘Patchwork memory – mending the pieces’, in Taipei Biennia: The Quest for Identity, Taipei Fine Art Museum (ed.), Taipei: Taipei Fine Art Museum, pp. 22–43.

suggesTed ciTATion

Tung, W.-H. (2012), ‘“The Return of the Real”: Art and Identity in Taiwan’s Public Sphere’, Journal of Visual Art Practice 11: 2+3, pp. 157–172, doi: 10.1386/jvap.11.2-3.157_1

conTribuTor deTAils

Wei Hsiu Tung is Assistant Professor at the National University of Tainan, Taiwan. During 2010–2011, she was Visiting Research Fellow in Public Art in the Sir John Cass School of Art, Media and Design at London Metropolitan University. Her forthcoming book is entitled Art for Social Change: Towards An Anthropological Study of Residences in Taiwan (Lexington Books, 2012).

E-mail: weihsui@hotmail.com

Wei-Hsiu Tung has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

JVAP_11.2-3_Tung_157-172.indd 172 9/6/12 9:22:39 AM

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

McM

aste

r U

nive

rsity

] at

15:

40 1

8 D

ecem

ber

2014