Chen Chieh-jen
Empire’s Borders II – Western Enterprises Inc
Preview: 1 October, 18:00-21:00
Exhibition dates: 2 October to 20 November
Chinese Arts Centre is pleased to present a solo exhibition of the work of Chen Chieh-jen. The exhibition will be the UK premier of Chen Chieh-jen’s latest video work Empire’s Borders II – Western Enterprises Inc. (2010) together with the single-screen video Empire’s Borders I (2009) and archival material.
Internationally acclaimed Taiwanese video artist Chen Chieh-jen sees his work as ‘an act of connection, linking together the history of people who have been excluded from the dominant discourse.’ In his concern with recent history he is acutely aware of Taiwan’s own complex political status as a country with limited international recognition.
The main piece in his project for Chinese Arts Centre is a new three-screen HD video installation and photographic/documentary archive Empire’s Borders II—Western Enterprises, Inc. The piece is based on a number of documents the artist’s late father left behind, which painted an intriguing picture of a life lived in cold-war secrecy. They hinted at the politics of an era when the CIA cooperated with Taiwanese intelligence and trained the Anti-Communist National Salvation Army on its long-abandoned mission to retake the Chinese mainland. As Chen said, his father rarely talked about his work; the only fact he acknowledged was that the autobiography he wrote was fictional. Chen’s new film project is about his father’s journey, about his imagination and his own imagination.
Almost all of Chen’s recent films have dealt with the impact of global capitalism on individuals, through various systems of exchange. Earlier works, like Factory or Bade Area focused on the impact that the free movement of goods had on the lives of people as factories for new goods (first textiles, then computers) rapidly became the sources of Taiwan’s new wealth, only to close down even faster a few decades later when industrial production moved to mainland China and elsewhere. In Empire’s Borders I, the artist shifted his attention from the impact of global trade to the human stories of immigration and emigration, told in the words of Chinese immigrants to Taiwan and Taiwanese immigrants to the USA. This first film in the new series dealt with attempts of individuals to acquire or assert their normality and legitimacy in the face of bureaucratic state apparatuses (border controls, visa regulations).
Empire’s Borders II, now, introduces another twist. The actors are the same: the USA, Taiwan and mainland China. But where the first film showed how states take bureaucratic and legal steps to lock down their borders against the movement of individuals, this second project takes its inspiration from the surreptitious cross-border movements of individuals in irregular army units acting on behalf of the state. To do this, Chen turns his gaze not on the secretive military episodes themselves but on the civilian companies set up to provide a legitimate front for these operations. Empire’s Borders II becomes a search for Western Enterprises, Inc, in Taiwan today, updating the Cold War tropes to show up their legacy in the contemporary world.
The exhibition is presented as part of the AND festival and is curated by Dr Marko Daniel with Yu-Ling Chou as assistant curator.
The exhibition is made possible with support by the Council for Cultural Affairs, Taiwan.
Image credit
Empire’s Borders II, Chen Chieh-jen, 2010, Video Still
Whisper Residency – Fiona Long
The 1980s was a seminal period in the history of contemporary art in China. However, the contribution and experimentalism of the art scene in South China, in particular, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, have generally been overlooked. But due in part to the proximity of Hong Kong, western ideas from translated books and articles as well as popular culture in the form of TV shows and Canto pop, flooded over the border to Guangdong at the end of the Cultural Revolution. This influx of new ideas and popular culture sparked great excitement, debate and experimentation in the arts.
Chinese Arts Centre pays tribute to two artists, Mary Tang and Cathy Wu, who have shown commitment to the Centre over the last 20 years. Both artists have worked as workshop leaders for the Centre but are also accomplished ink brush painting and calligraphy artists in their own right.
