Pressekonferenz, v.l.n.r.: die Kuratoren Bruno Latour (Video) und Martin Guinard; Ping LIN, Direktorin des of Taipei Fine Arts Museum; Eva Lin, Kuratorin der Bildungsprogramme.
© Taipei Fine Arts Museum

Die diesjährige Biennale wird von dem Philosophen Bruno Latour und dem freischaffenden Kurator Martin Guinard kuratiert, und die unabhängige taiwanesische Kuratorin Eva Lin konzipierte die Bildungsprogramme. Es sind Werke und Projekte von 57 Beteiligten und Gruppen aus 27 Ländern und Territorien zu sehen.

Entitled You and I Don’t Live on the Same Planet, the biennial questions our current ongoing geopolitical tensions and worsening ecological crisis by examining our differences and influences on a planetary perspective. As Latour and Guinard commented: “There is increasing disagreement on how to keep the world inhabitable, not only because political opinions diverge, but more crucially because we don’t seem to agree on what the earth is made of. Some today may even think the world is flat! It is as if there were several versions of Earth, with properties and capacities that are so different that they are like distinctive planets, which results in deviation in the way one feels, behaves, and predicts their future.”

The biennial proposes a fictional “planetarium” within the museum, wherein the invited artists, activists and scientists explore the tensions between the gravitational pull of different “planets.” Each planet embodies a divergent version of the world, not only in terms of representation, but also in terms of materiality. The planetarium includes: a planet for those who relentlessly modernize despite planetary boundaries (planet GLOBALIZATION); a planet for those who feel betrayed by globalization and want to consequently build walls for seclusion (planet SECURITY); a planet for the few privileged who want to settle on Mars to avoid the doomsday (planet ESCAPE); a planet for those who cannot afford such a costly trip but instead seek refuge in an environment imbued with metaphysical beliefs (planet with ALTERNATIVE GRAVITY); and finally one for those who are concerned about the climate situation and trying to reconcile the balance between maintaining prosperity while keeping within the planetary boundaries (planet TERRESTRIAL).

Indigenous Mexican artist Fernando PALMA’s robotic chimera creatures will serve as the prelude and move in several directions in the entrance hall, which prompts us to confront these ambiguous Nahua figures that are composed of electrical and construction materials, with electricity as the vital force that allows the work to flow. The work embodies a traditional Nahua perspective that believes humans can establish a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with the surrounding environment when we realize that everything has a “persona.”

Planet GLOBALIZATION is shaped by the dreams of modernization, which has kept attracting people regardless of climate change and increasing inequalities. French artist Franck LEIBOVICI and legal analyst Julien SEROUSSI tackle issues around international justice with muzungu. Basing their research on a case arbitrated by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, they have developed experimental methodologies for court practitioners in an installation of archival display. Docents are especially recruited for the project to be on-site mediators, helping visitors to rearrange the evidentiary materials, making new narratives emerge from the images, and thus generating new discourses on the case from their viewpoints.

Planet GLOBALIZATION seems to have little traction for those who feel betrayed by the current economic system and who need to hide behind the walls of their nation state to protect themselves in planet SECURITY. This planet emerged because of figures like Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who manipulated some people’s fears in numerous documentary films and imposed a deep division on those who want to build a common world. Jonas STAAL presents a retrospective of Bannon’s work by methodically dissecting the mechanisms of the ultra-right propaganda in the US. In Taiwan, the notion of “security” is also a hot topic under constant review and discussion, which the artist CHIN Cheng-Te and his collaborators’ work explore. Inspired by the military and historical background of Shilin and Beitou in Taiwan, they present Making Friends/ Fire. The work is composed of various installations and artifacts, based on the bunkers and defense apparatus built in Taiwan during the cold war period, implying how the regime carried out surveillance to maintain the integrity of its governance.

Planet ESCAPE explores the urge of a small number of privileged people who want to leave Earth and colonize Mars or build a bunker deep in the ground that will not be affected by climate change. With her work Corrupted Air–Act VI, Dutch artist Femke HERREGRAVEN invites us into a survivalist bunker, an imaginary “panic room” in case of catastrophe. Tracing statistics regarding catastrophe bonds, human death rates, and ecological extinction, the artist has produced data visualizations, landscape reliefs, sound, and visual images, offering a prophecy of the future of the “Last Man.”

Taipeh Biennale 2020 Website

Taipeh Biennale Livestreams
Online-Programme, darunter das Symposium am 21. November 2020

TB 2020 Guidebook