By Nancy T. Lu
The moving image has become a mainstay of contemporary aesthetic expression. This explains the holding of the Videonale in Berlin, paving the way for the newly-opened exhibition “Videonale: Dialogue in Contemprary Video Art” at the Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung in central Taiwan.
Georg Elben, the man behind the Videonale in Berlin, and Wang Jun-jieh, famous Taiwanese new media artist, have joined hands to bring together 10 works from Germany, 10 from Taiwan and 33 from the rest of the world in an unprecedented exhibition of video art of such scale in Taiwan.
Forty-four works from 19 countries have come from participants of the 10th to 13th Videonale in Bonn. Nine Taiwanese artists have been invited to join and contribute to the diversity of the new media art show. Their political, social and media commentaries invite a look.
Museum visitors can expect the range: an hour-long film, a documentary, an experimental short, a concept video or a dramatic film. Each contemporary art production explores an issue.
Wang, a judge at the 13th Videonale in Bonn last year, waded through 2,000 entries. He saw how multimedia artists transcended stereotypes inWang, an invited judge at the 1 style and material use in their entries.
The ongoing exhibition of 53 works has required a bigger-than-ever area in size to mount. An entirely new space layout design featuring special seating arrangements has been introduced to create a new visual field and make possible a fresh new media experience. The museum under the leadership of director Huang Tsai-lang also has had to deal with the difficulty of bringing video to its premises. Artists after all are using new technologies all the time. Technicians have had to be brought in to properly put the exhibit in place.
Goethe Institute, the German Cultural Center, has supported the project at the museum. Epson has been the sponsor of the essential projectors. The exhibit, which opened on December 3, will run until February 26, 2012.
