Jury’s Comments for the Visual Arts Award

Commissioned—I-Hsuen Chen Solo Exhibition departs from the artist's working conditions and reflects on the art eco-system, where the artist and his peers are interconnected and mutually supportive in daily life, and belong together to a generation of “slashies” across various cultural production fields in their creative careers. This is not only the reality of the art world but also a microcosm of contemporary society. Intermingling participatory co-productions, extravagant actions, sarcasms of "professional formula", flowing shots, delicately synched music and motion images, Chen turns the video installation into a vivid movie scene, bringing the real world into the museum, while entangling the art space in the cobweb of image society.

Comments on the Finalist

Commissioned constitutes of an eight-channel video and transforms Hong-gah Museum into a unique site. The artist invites more than twenty young image artists to be his performers, whose hand-held cameras show improvised dance rhythm and physical movement as they collectively perform eighteen dance choreographies. The brilliance and prominence of this work is first found in its meta quality, manifested by the combination of sonic composition and self-revealing interviews, and is also shown through the “commission” of image workers, whose collaboration and creative process serves as a dialectic examination of the hierarchy composed of freelancing, artistic creation and art museums. Commissioned—I-Hsuen Chen Solo Exhibition departs from Taiwan’s common video art landscape and unveils an innovative, fresh vista. (Commentator: SING Song-Yong)

 

Artwork Introduction

Chen I-Hsuan started his photographer career as a freelancer and a “slashie.” With this semi-biographical topic, he adopts the role as the commissioning party, and “hired” a dozen of art practitioners, who, like himself, self-identify as photographer / contractors / researcher, to explore the idea of “body with a camera.” Under various “commission” instructions, the commissioned participants perform movements and interactions, improvising a series of dance choreographies that implicitly and dialectically address the relationship between the commissioning party / the commissioned party as well as being a creator / being a contractor. The work also includes an interview with the participants, which is shown as an eight-channel video with an oval-shaped projection in the museum to discuss how artists of Chen’s generation strategically achieve a balance between seeking livelihood and creative freedom while helping each other move forward.

About the Artist

Chen I-Hsuen holds an MFA in Photography from Pratt Institute, New York, USA. He now lives and works in Taipei. His practice is rooted in personal experience, and he has examined his personal life history through photography before extending it to the living situations of wider groups and communities. Through photography, video, publication, performance and exhibition, Chen has continuously experimented and expanded the definition and dimensionality of photography. His work also reflects his interest in music and body performance. He has participated in the 2016 Taipei Biennial. His work has been featured in various photography festivals, and he has held solo exhibitions at Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Hong-gah Museum and other art institutions.