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Published on2020-10-16Views:9
"Factory" No.2.
Artwork Analysis
Chen Chieh-Jen (1960-) was born in Taoyuan, Taiwan, and graduated from vocational high school. He currently lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan. In the 1980s during the period martial law period, Chen challenged the political system through performance art. After martial law was lifted in 1987, Chen went into creative hibernation, which ended in 1996 when he started to create art again. He is currently a world-renowned avant-garde artist.
Chen Chieh-Jen once said, "Returning to one's life narratives begins with a reflection on one's experience of modernization; only then can the possibility of art be found." Contemporary issues and the social contexts of politics, economics, and culture have always been the subjects of Chen's ponderings. After 2000, Chen Chieh-Jen started to focus on video installations as his primary form of artistic creation. In terms of the approach, Chen takes a stand as an artist to voice his criticism and to challenge social norms by way of fabrication, imagination, reproduction and re-creation. "Lingchi: Echoes of a Historical Photograph" from 2002 is one such an example, in which the "body" serves as a conduit for contemplation on contemporary issues.
"Factory No. 2" shows piles of tables and chairs messily stacked on top of each other, while the ceiling above appears to press down aggressively. Vaguely visible inside the piles of chairs and tables are female workers nearly drowned in this air-tight space. The viewer can even feel the oppression inflicted upon them. The image successfully delivers a sense of suffocation as a response to the problem of global unemployment, while also illustrating Chen's poetic and extremely profound and realistic artistic vocabulary.
Artist Profile
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Last updated on2024-03-27