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59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia
23 April - 27 November 2022
Title: Impossible Dreams
Organizer: Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Convener of International Forums: Patrick Flores
See sessions, participants, schedule
Venue: Palazzo delle Prigioni
See address, organizer, contacts
Titled Impossible Dreams, the exhibition looks back on how the Taiwan’s cultural contexts and perspectives have been presented at this international art spectacle through diverse contemporary art that confronts history, society and pressing issues in our everyday lives over the 13 editions, ever since its first participation in the Biennale Arte in 1995. The event consists of two parts: firstly, the "archival display" curated by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, which presents the archives and revisits works from the Taiwan Exhibition from 1995 to 2019; secondly, the "international forums" will be presided over by Philippine veteran curator Patrick Flores as chief convener.
Though the two aspirations in the title Impossible Dreams seem to move away from actuality and achievement, by reconsidering the meaning of "impossible" and "dreams", the exhibition tries to cast aside the preconception about these two words and expand their interpretation. According to the theorist Drucilla Cornell, who meditates on Derrida’s theory of the impossible, time or temporality "keeps open the ‘not yet,’ but as part of experience." Based on this proposition, "Impossible" here means "not-yet possible", a description of a condition and a hope for better things, people, and worlds to come. As for "dreams", they are vessels, stations, and visions that complicate time and dimension; they create chances of passage from reality to fantasy, from states of awareness to spheres of the unconscious; and ultimately set imaginations free. In the same breath, dreams flesh out fears, revisit pain and anxieties, and retell the stories of turbulent origins. Impossible Dreams acknowledges the constraints of the prevailing crisis and at the same time works towards the realization of a possibility, taking a retrospective look at and pointing to the prospects of Taiwan’s collateral presentation in the Biennale Arte.
In Impossible Dreams, the "archival display" and "international forums" evoke memory and trigger conversations, creating an exchange between discourse and perception to generate more dialogue through their content, thus becoming assemblies that address memory (archive) and presence (event).
The "archival display" in Venice sets up a space for memory to be reactivated, where the themes and curatorial concepts, exhibition photos and documentaries, visuals and publicity designs of previous editions of the Exhibition, as well as the documentation and records of their making behind-the-scenes are presented. Several works from previous editions, including Yao Jui-Chung’s Territory Takeover, Tsui Kuang-Yu’s Shortcut to the Systematic Life, Tang Huang-Chen’s I Go Travelling V – A Postcard with Scenery, Tsai Ming-Liang’s It’s a Dream, Chen Chieh-Jen’s Empire’s Borders I, Chang Chien-Chi’s China Town series and Tehching Hsieh’s Jump, return as live archives, serving as references between the present and the past.
Launched as online programs, the International Forum sessions will be hosted by chief convener Patrick Flores, independent curator Manray Hsu and Wu Mali, professor at the Graduate Institute of Transdisciplinary Art, National Kaohsiung Normal University, with participation of overseas and local scholars and artists. The forums are a means to encourage the co-existence of views and the departure from conventional knowledge, leading to an open-ended outcome. The four forums will rethink Taiwan’s collateral presentation within the Biennale Arte from different standpoints, creating dynamic conversations with the previous exhibitions and responding to key issues in today’s world:
Forum access:
www.taiwaninvenice.org/forums
Patrick Flores states: "The interaction between the archive and the forum will encourage a thoughtful reflection on the roles that contemporary art, curatorial practice, and the national pavilion play in the global art world today as they intersect at points of crisis and opportunity."
TFAM director Jun-Jieh Wang says, "Taiwan has continued to communicate with the international art world through exhibitions of various types for nearly 30 years. This exhibition re-examines the dynamic relationship between our collateral presence and the Biennale Arte through archival display and international forums, and takes a step further to actively explore new paths for the future."
From press information.
© Cover photo: Haupt & Binder, Universes in Universe
Taiwan in Venice 2022
Palazzo delle Prigioni
Castello 4209, San Marco
Vaporetto Station San Zaccaria
Next to the Palazzo Ducale
Location on map
Official website:
www.taiwaninvenice.org
Organizer:
Taipei Fine Arts Museum
No.181, Sec. 3, Zhongshan N. Rd., Zhongshan Dist.,
Taipei City 10461, Taiwan
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Media contacts:
Yumei Sung
yumei-tfam(at)mail.taipei.gov.tw
Tzu-chin Kao
tckao-tfam(at)mail.taipei.gov.tw
