National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, 2023 International Techno Art: Works on Labor in the Age of Technology.. and More
Taiwan_Taichung
National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, 2023 International Techno Art: Works on Labor in the Age of Technology
Since 2004, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA) has held annual techno art exhibitions. The museum views the modern era as an age of technology and presents exhibitions to explore various cultural issues. This year, the museum invited British curator Mike Stubbs and Taiwanese curator Ming Turner to open “Are You Working Now?.” The exhibition runs through November 5.
13 artists (collectives) from eight countries in Europe and Asia are featured. Divided into three sections, ‘Coal mining to data mining,’ ‘Self-exploitation,’ and ‘Clocking off,’ the exhibition addresses the questions of “What is work?” and “Why work?.” The show traces the developmental trajectory of the attention economy from individual bodily labor to the capital economy, and then to big data and digital media. The works in the exhibition address current issues such as NFTs and digital mining, explore time capital, labor, leisure, entertainment, and economic systems, and question the nature of labor.
Participating artists include Harun Farocki, Tehching Hsieh, Maurice Benayoun, Hito Steyerl, John Gerrard, Tzu-Ning WU, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Yi Chen, I-Ting Hou, Simon Denny, Rosie Gibbens, Molleindustria, Your Bros. Filmmaking Group CO.
Japan_Yamaguchi
Three Taiwanese Artists Present Japanese Puppet Theatre at Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media
The Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM) presents “There is another capital beneath the wave” through September 3. Three Taiwanese artists, Hsu Chia-Wei (b. 1983), TingTong Chang (b. 1982), and Hsien-Yu Cheng (b. 1984), explore the history of Taiwan’s sugar industry during Japanese colonization, expanding the issue to the relationship between the two countries and the modernization across East Asia.
The exhibition is divided into a Taiwanese section and a Japanese section, with the Japanese section featuring new works by the three artists. The new work combines Japanese puppet theatre and CG animation, video, and live performance, centered around the story set in the town of Mojiko in Kitakyushu, which once flourished as a hub for international trade.
China_Beijing
CAFA Art Museum: “Painting Xinjiang: Xinjiang-focused Art since the 20th Century”
Through August 20, the CAFA Art Museum in Beijing presents “Painting Xinjiang: Xinjiang-Focused Art Since the 20th Century.” The exhibition explores the history of modern art in China with a focus on two themes: Xinjiang and study.
In the 20th century, groups of artists traveled to Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where they created studies as a group artistic endeavor. The show divides the historical period into four sections, the pioneer period before 1949, the New China period from 1949 to 1978, a new period centered on the Reform and Opening-up from 1979 to 2000, and the current period from 2000 to the present. It addresses questions about the ideologies reflected in activities in Xinjiang, the system of artistic production and creative trends under those ideologies, and the influence of Xinjiang’s unique cultural and geographical features on the works.
The exhibition also focuses on study as a historical genre of the 20th century, whose prevalence had the effect of making artists see and draw their subjects directly, and which became closely associated with Chinese realism after 1949, when artists began to paint workers, farmers, and soldiers, as advocated by Máo Zédōng (1893-1976). The exhibition explains that the meaning of study transformed from a mere act of technical training into a methodology of creation.
