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Out of the Window 

International Exhibition Produced by Taoyuan Museum of Fine Arts & Centraal Museum Utrecht

 

Established on 1 January 2018, this year marks the 3^rd year of Taoyuan Museum of Fine Arts (TMoFA). In celebration of its 3^rd anniversary of establishment, TMoFA works with the Centraal Museum of Utrecht, Netherlands across borders, selecting works in the collection of both while inviting nine works of short animations and video art for the special exhibition themed with “Out of the Window”.

 

A window is essential to architecture for lighting and ventilation. The light introduced therefrom brings colors and images to the eyes, while the fresh air flowing through breathes life into it. A window is not merely an integral part of our living spaces, but also a place for overwatching rich with meanings. A window is like an eye, while the open and close of which determines the seen and unseen of the outside world. In applications of the Internet in the digital era, windows also involve in exchanges of information and resources, referred to as the interface in between individuals or countries. A “window” thus “blocks” while “connects” inside and outside. It not just reflects the “limit” in the physical reality but also symbolizes the “limitless” as the breakthrough psychologically and consciously.

 

The theme “Out of the Window” refers to the physical space of the exhibition as well as the affluent metaphors and symbols residing in windows. The main complex of Taoyuan Museum of Fine Arts is still under construction. At present, it takes the 5^th and 6^th floor of the Guang-Feng Building in Bade District as its place of operation. The exhibition unveils from the array of French windows on site to the outer walls, using huge projectors for the outdoor showcase of video installations. Hence, the limit of the museum’s existing space is broken, creating interaction and connection inside and out to usher in more public participation and expand the relationship between art and life. On top of that, we can look beyond the window for the vast horizon that art may bring forth.

 

Participating artists from different countries and diverse cultural backgrounds showcase nine landscapes in “out of the window”, opening portals to different space-time via multiple dimensions. To the Moon by Hsin-Chien Huang and Laurie Anderson takes us to fly into the space, revisit the historic site that signifies the space competition between the U.S. and the USSR, and delve into the desire of humans in pursuit of technology. Meanwhile, it inquires fundamentally the very existence of mankind and the universe via the immense plain of desolation and the state of weightlessness. Masks of Folly by Han Hoogerbrugge reconfigures local fragments of history and culture in the colorful style of the medieval stained glass. The struggle of humanity as well as good and evil are presented in juxtaposition in a symbolic fashion. It is like the rows of rolling images on a slot machine for gambling that implies their unpredictability and recurring cycle.

 

Tick Tock by Hsueh-Mien Wu employs a clock as its basis, manifesting the abstract notion of minute/second and the consciousness of time lively and vividly. She demonstrates the life on the clock while depicts the status of time inverted, confused, and disordered so as to ponder over the duality and absolutivity of “on track” and “off track”. Lotte & Vince by Frans Hofmeester appeals to the continuity of images, investigating the theme of heterochrony through the footage of the growth of two residents in Utrecht. In a window of a few minutes, the appearances of the two kids Lotte and Vince growing from age 0 to 20 allows audience to see vividly the flowing of time and the changes it brings to humans. Like a documentary of a personal life history, it grants each of us the chance to see ourselves therein. In De Roeier by Jeroen Kooijmans, time seems suspended. Through a shot at close filled with intimacy, the artist shoots the young lady rowing a boat on a canal. The constant picturesque landscape and the repeated motion of rowing are simple as one. It is exceptionally serene, tender, and romantic. Kooijmans amplifies the weight of routines and the existential meaning of moments via a “poetic counter-narrative”, getting us rid of the image framework of a conventional spectacle in the consumer society nowadays.

 

The Insatiable, one of the works in "Things That Are Edible" series of Jawshing Arthur Liou, employs a distinctive bird’s eye view to flip our everyday night market experience: the Zhongli Night Market that feeds commoners, crowded with people and glistening with lights, appears to be extraordinary beautiful. Over the winding long street, one sees rich micro details as well as the holistic macro picture. It is like a gluttonous warm/snake or a digesting bowel in motion, intriguing us into contemplating the meaning of night market as a life support system to a city.

 

In Murmur and Whisper II by Wen-Hsin Teng, with the various gestures dancing to the music, the use body instead of words and the appeal to a living dialogue composed of watching instead of reading inspire vibrantly an alternative thinking toward language and symbol as well as toward interpersonal communication and conversation. The animation Extrapolate by Johan Rijpma also employs “hand” as the point of departure: the hand holding a pen to draw becomes the picture drawn. The repeated inversion of subject and object unveils a surreal imagination and inquires the logic of science. The term “extrapolate” in mathematics refers to a mean to build new data on the basis of known information, which is often employed for the purpose of future trend projection. What Rijpma extrapolated and derived from the hand-drawn contours turns out to be an automatic “record” of thoughts.

 

Finally, Not Never No.com by Rafaël Rozendaal stresses on the visual communication in the virtual space on the Internet. The artist exceling online animation utilizes rich and colorful geometric shapes as well as the structural compositions full of tension like action vs. inaction and concentration vs. proliferation to explore the simple, pure visual experiences that are easy to share as his response to the visual tendency in the era of global networks.

 

Visitors are invited to set their eyes “out of the window” physically and abstractly, jumping and traversing in between the ordinary and extraordinary, the real and surreal, and the inner cosmos and the outer world via domestic and foreign short videos which are in different perspectives and fields of views. The elapsed past, the present now, and the forthcoming future, be that been or yet to be, they could cross with each other on this moment perhaps. Setting our eyes “out of the window” from watching to imagining, let us gaze at the vision that is constantly generated and opening, exploring, transcending, and even flipping the “here and now” in reality.

 

Curator：Chun-Lan Liu, Bart Rutten

December 18 (Fri.) – December 30 (Wed.), 2020

Weekday and Sunday 19:00 / Saturday 19:00, 19:50

Venue：Taoyuan Children's Art Center and The North Park of Kwong Fong Plaza

Opening：December 18 (Fri.), 2020, 19:00

Artists：Hsin-Chien Huang + Laurie Anderson, Jawshing Arthur Liou, Wen-Hsin Teng, Hsueh-Mien Wu, Frans Hofmeester, Han Hoogerbrugge, Jeroen Kooijmans, Johan Rijpma, Rafaël Rozendaal

 

Organization：Taoyuan Museum of Fine Arts & Centraal Museum Utrecht

Special Thanks：Netherlands Office Taipei, LIMA media art platform, Kwong Fong Plaza, The Peng's Agora Garden