Installations from five of Taiwan’s leading contemporary artists are on display as part of the country’s Pavilion Without Walls at the Performa Biennial performing arts festival in New York, spotlighting government efforts to promote local artists on the global stage.
Running Nov. 1-24 and featuring works by Chou Yu-cheng, Su Hui-yu, Yu Cheng-ta, Huang Po-chih, and Shu Lea Cheang, the pavilion is co-curated by U.S.-based nonprofit Performa, Taipei City-based Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab and Taipei Fine Arts Museum and supported by the Ministry of Culture and Taipei Cultural Center in New York.
At the announcement ceremony, MOC Minister Cheng Li-chiun said that Taiwan’s free and democratic society has helped spark a thriving cultural scene. Major international platforms like Performa Biennial can help talent developed at home showcase works abroad, she added.
According to the MOC, the five art installations from Taiwan cover numerous topics spanning areas such as labor, immigration, trade, gender equality and social media.
Chou’s work focuses on the systems that underpin the Big Apple’s financial district, Su explores queer identity and racial politics, Huang creates an elegy for a Chinese immigrant sex worker, Yu examines the phenomenon of social media stardom and Cheang presents cultural and physical expressions of sleep.
Now in its eighth year, the Performa Biennial is hosted at venues across New York. The Pavilions Without Walls program is designed to give artists from different countries opportunities to perform minus the expense of a fixed location, with 2019 featuring works from Taiwan and Sweden. (RAY-E)
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