The Gala

Taipei VT Art Salon and A Thousand Plateaus Art Space will launch exhibition “The Gala”. This is the first collaboration between the two institutions, showing experimental artworks by three artists from mainland China - Chen Qiulin, Chen Xiaoyi and Feng Bingyi. The exhibition will open on December 14th, 2019 at Taipei VT Art Salon.

“The Gala” reflects historical and realistic backgrounds behind the creation processes of three artists and the artistic conception and tensity between their personalized and imaginative ways of narration. In this exhibition, “The Gala” is more like an object revealed by the artworks rather than a theme of a certain work. 

At this moment of the world, great events happen every day. They are sometimes very close, sometimes very far away, and often bring with confusion and melancholy. In front of the reality, whether the contemporary artists could discover the unique power between art and reality, apart from the straightforward intervention? Could they find the bridge based on artistic language among the aesthetic depth, realistic intervention, historical attitude, and self-examination, or find a more fundamental structural connection among them?

Chen Qiulin’s Following You Like a Shadow presents a modern dance drama in the form of video. In such special scene, the inter-waved body movement maps a true relationship between people. Following the flattening of communication, the interpersonal relationships often reflects a more general historical and political context. Therefore, is “Hell is other people” a philosophic description or a beginning to discover a more complex social relationship? City Manager is another representation of the same question. The confrontations between different groups during the process of urban expansion are presented by absurdities and sarcasm, in the form of concrete stories.

Chen Xiaoyi’s “Where We Met” is based on the image of the moon, because it is the only place in the world where all people’s eyes are gathered: not only the living people, but all humans in history. The thought and emotion carried by the moon might exceed anything else in human history. Her another piece of work An Infinitesimal Wink, opposite to the moon, shows a variety of neglected moments. Those moments represent another dimension of history: in here, people are easier to recall the freedom of life. 

The “Fool's Gold” of Feng Bingyi comes from a fable: how could people confirm whether they are “stupid” when they face the reality? The artist writes that "I won't go back. I don't need you to tell me what happened." There is often a flimsiest veil between the“Naivety” and “Strong”. In the context of post-modernity, not even rational or sincere thoughts or beliefs can be felt. Her other video works like The Gala and Plenty of Fish in The Sea andSplendor in The Grass shape a concentration to the galactic time and space. These works are soft and easy to narrate, thus connecting the realities of each person's heart in the framework of history.

“The Gala” is not a grand but a reality from small details. What the three artists have in common is that they all face realities in a restrained but courageous way and and use their creations full of insight and comfort to penetrate the obstacles in front of them, establishing a personal and inspiring connection with a broader time and space. Such connection is perhaps the source of energy that contemporary aesthetics is worth discovering.