Publications

Romance

Publisher: Garden City Publishing Co, Taipei
Published Date: 2010-02-01
ISBN: 9789867009890

Lust Penetrates History—New Work by Yao Jui-chung

By Wu Chieh-hsiang
Assistant Professor of Art, National Changhua University of Education

More than two years ago, the argument was once made in the Taiwanese art-criticism world that Taiwan lacked political art. At the time, the art critic Chen Tai-Song alluded to Yao Ruizhong's politically-minded action art as a counter example. Yao Jui-Chung's photographs and artworks referencing traditional landscape and genre painting over the last two years have continued in this vein of political sensitivity. Few of Taiwan's mid-career or young artists pay much attention to the larger issues of the day, and so we are certainly justified in saying Yao Ruizhong, in terms of content, subject matter and even technique, is the representative political artist of the mid-career generation. The astonishingly talented Yao is both an artist and critic as well as an able theoretician and curator. His artwork is not only varied in genre, material and content, but is also original and unprecedented. Yao casts aside tradition and transcends media-limitations in his artwork; his photography is unique in that it is closer to topographical or textual studies; and his manipulation of symbols in his landscape paintings transcends atmospheric concerns. Yao does not represent a specific historical figure when he appears in his videos, but rather serves as a symbol of an historical era. In this way Yao's video art differs from other artists', reminding us that while the individual's short-lived and insignificant mark on space and time may be factual, it is still patently absurd.