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An interview with Manray Hsu
A Vision on Contemporary Taiwanese Art
Manray Hsu is
an independent art critic and curator based in Taipei (Taiwan) who has
acted as a co-curator of the Taipei Biennial 2000, 'The Sky is the Limit',
that was held in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. The Gate Foundation invited
him to the Netherlands to give some lectures on contemporary Taiwanese
art and artists. Somewhere in his schedule of appointments with a variety
of curators and visits to different art centres and museums, we were able
to meet on a terrace in the Amsterdam summer sun. It was an exceptionally
hot day by Dutch standards. 'These temperatures are common in Taiwan,
therefore children like to stay in the air-conditioned Seven Elevens and
read comic books', Manray Hsu says with a smile.
* By SASKIA MONSHOUWER
The central issue of the interview is a
complex one. What is the relationship between the regional specific Taiwanese
identity, and the international art world? How can we deal with the current
shift of political and cultural categorizations, and how do these changes
reflect on modern and current art? These questions are well-nigh impossible
to answer in the short period of time we have together, yet their answers
not only determine Manray Hsu's broader philosophical vision on art, but
also our personal confrontation, as they underlie every one of his remarks.
On the one hand, Manray Hsu acts as a kind of ambassador,
carrying knowledge and images from Taiwan and representing his region.
On the other, he seeks to represent a certain vision common in the international
art world today. He believes in a new kind of art, an international one.
A kind of art that can reflect thoughts and beliefs pronounced in post-modernist,
philosophical texts and can be seen as an outcome of new communication
technologies and processes, such as the development of a new economy and
shifts in dependency relations.
'Can you still speak of typical Taiwanese art, in the sense
of national Taiwanese art?' This is my first question, in an attempt to
find a common name for the diversity of photographs of art works he carries
with him. 'Nationalism cannot be dealt with systematically,' he answers,
'only nations tend to do so. From the point of view of the citizen, there
are many possibilities. You can resist it; you can stay or leave and make
all kinds of combinations.' The fact that Manray Hsu immediately changes
the perspective of the question from an overview to a personal level appears
crucial, and has a political and historical dimension.
In his introduction on Taiwanese art, he points to the fast
and rigorous entry into modernity that Taiwan has made. This entrance
is related to its political situation. Taipei, as we know it now is a
crowded city buzzing with activity. People are generally busy and work
all around the clock, Seven Elevens are on every corner, and children
find themselves all kinds of toys made in Japan or the USA. Modern Taiwan
has come into existence from the moment the KMT had been driven out of
China by the Communist Party. The KMT then established a dictatorial regime
and unconditionally focused its policies on economic production and international
trade. For the development of modern art, the most important impulse has
been the opening of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 1984.
The ambiguity that follows the changes of the past five
decades is reflected in the name Manray Hsu proper: a chosen name and
self- 
created identity. He chose the invented name of an artist who, as a child
from Polish Jews in New York, stood at the roots of modern art. Manray
Hsu seems to claim that the bedrock for modern and contemporary art in
Taiwan can only be understood in the context of the political vulnerability
of the country and its recent leap into modernity. The latter is well
illustrated by the way he handles the photographs he carries with him.
His laptop provides access to a large image-databank with images of artworks
by several Taiwanese artists.
created identity. He chose the invented name of an artist who, as a child
from Polish Jews in New York, stood at the roots of modern art. Manray
Hsu seems to claim that the bedrock for modern and contemporary art in
Taiwan can only be understood in the context of the political vulnerability
of the country and its recent leap into modernity. The latter is well
illustrated by the way he handles the photographs he carries with him.
His laptop provides access to a large image-databank with images of artworks
by several Taiwanese artists. In addition, he makes snapshots of the city of Taipei and
shows them so as to provide an introduction to contemporary art. He sees
these snapshots as the vehicle of his mission, a tool in making people
understand what current art is about. Manray Hsu emphasizes the present
and provides an entry to contemporary art. The works of most contemporary
Taiwanese artists contain elements from street scenes: a photograph of
a shop window depicts colourful, plastic, Japanese and American products.
Advertisements, comics, and new techniques constitute the theme and determine
the motives in a variety of works of art. Subsequently, a view of art
history is being defined. In a sense, the reconstruction of history in
modern art parallels how people redefine their own identity. Reconstructing
history, then, is the second underlying theme of current Taiwanese art.
Tradition, politics, and world history are at the heart of this reconstruction.
In consequence of this starting point, questions about traditional
Taiwanese art (or, in a wider context, about Chinese or Southeast Asian
art) are not to be interpreted as a search for a chronological line in
which the new develops from the old. Both the new and the old are creations,
they are intellectual reflections. Thoughts on tradition are fluently
combined with thoughts about the future. This perspective is strongly
present in the works of the Taiwanese artists.
The works of Hongjohn Lin present many parallels to the
thoughts of Manray Hsu. He earned his PhD in art history at the University
of New York. In an installation of his in the Japanese garden of the Metropolitan
Museum, he was living in this garden, dressed in traditional Japanese
garments. In all of his works, Hongjohn Lin plays a subtle game with history
and creates new and surprising views on cultural identity. After his studies,
he returned to Taiwan, where he took to lecturing in photography, writing
and making art. Another artist Manray Hsu often mentions is Hung Tunglu,
who makes photographs of large robots. For those of you with children
(and thus well acquainted with modern cartoons), they best resemble 'Transformers',
huge robots composed of several smaller ones, which are, in proportion,
larger than the tallest buildings in the city. They appear in the meadows
in between colourful flowers as if poised to take over the world. In his
pictures, Hung Tunglu creates new icons and symbols that are easily understood
by a large range of people. Wan Jun-Jjieh, then, is an artist who works
with modern media, confronting people with the strange self-created world
we live in. At the Taipei Biennial 2000, he presented a virtual travel
agency. A space in the museum marked with pink plastic palm trees. Visitors
were invited to use computers and send e-mails across the world. Only
one artist Maray Hsu mentioned makes art that is explicitly related to
Taoist tradition. Lee Ming Wei made a museum architectural space, where
he would cook and invite people to eat with him. In the white and rectangular
surroundings he interviews his guests.
It would be wrong to conclude from these examples that you
might be able to distill out Manray Hsu's personal preferences. He has
an open view and is well aware of the danger of using works of art as
illustration to an intellectual vision. The diversity of art and artists
confirms this. When asked about his selection criteria, he points out
that it is all about quality, but the underlying thoughts and analyses
are clear.
'People are products of their time, but only some become
faces that tell what art is. These are the people that face up their historical
situation with great sensitivity. With the advent of industrial revolution,
time changes faster than before' so he proclaimed in 1999 in a text published
in the catalogue to the exhibition 'Face to Face', a presentation of contemporary
Taiwanese art in the Gold Coast City Art Gallery in Australia.
But in spite of his international goals and aims, in spite
of his visionary beliefs in a new international art, most of the questions
asked by the public concern the specific Taiwanese situation. They ask
him to specify both the regional differences of a pronounced Taiwanese
identity from a semi-traditional perspective and the way this identity
directs the production of current art in Taiwan. There is, of course,
nothing wrong with this curiosity, as long as it steers clear from transparent
categorizations of the exotic (that does not even exist in the end) or
more vicious ethnocentric beliefs.
Through looking at Taiwanese art, as presented by Manray
Hsu, it becomes very clear how daring it is to find the route to a new
kind of art. The political and historical lines are evidence of the need
to research and recreate an identity. *
About Manray Hsu:
Dr Manray
Hsu has a PhD Candidate in Aesthetics from the
Department of Philosophy at Columbia University, New York and is a regular
contributor to Art Asia-Pacific,
Flash Art and major
magazines in China.
AMONG HIS EXHIBITIONS ARE:
1997 'Back
from Home', bamboo Curtain Studio, Taipei
1998 'Thing-Made
Things', IT, Taipei
1999 Exhibition
of Chiang Hsiou-chien and Hasia Yin: 'Two
Youngest Artists in History', Hua-shan Cultural district,
Taipei (in cooperation with. Ralf Schmitt)
2000 'Frogansters':
Group exhibition of an indefinite Number of Frogs, 'About
Café','Bangkok,
Cities on the Move', H.M.L. Art Beatus Gallery, Vancouver
2000 Taipei
Biennial, 'The Sky is the limit' (co-curator
with Jerome Sans)
Saskia
Monshouwer is an art critic and publicist working for the GATE Foundation.
She is a regular contributor to 'Kunstbeeld', a Dutch art magazine.
E-mail: s.monshouwer@compaqnet.nl