Taiwanese
Taiwanese may refer to:
* Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien
* Something from or related to Taiwan ( Formosa)
* Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan
* Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan
* Taiwanese people, ...
curator
A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...
conceptual artist
Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional Aesthetics, aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes ca ...
. She has been described as the "'godmother' of Taiwan's socially engaged art by artist and art writer Bo Zheng.
Biography
Early career
Wu completed her college degree in German Language and Culture at
Tamkang University
Tamkang University (TKU; ) is a private university in Tamsui District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. It was founded in 1950 as a junior college of English literature. Today it is a comprehensive university with 11 colleges that serves nearly 25,000 ...
in 1979. She moved to Vienna, Austria, in the early 1980s and then moved to
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
Günther Uecker
Günther Uecker (; born 13 March 1930) is a German sculptor, op artist and installation artist.
Biography
Uecker was born in Wendorf, Mecklenburg.martial law lift triggered significant socio-political and economic changes. As society swiftly shifted focus, Wu took a strong interest in the emerging social, political and historical hierarchies.
1995-1999
In 1995 she had a group exhibition ''Balanceakte'' in the Ifa-Galerie Bonn of the Instituts für Auslandsbeziehungen. In the same year she was represented at the 46th
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
(Palazzo delle Prigioni) with the installation ''The Library.'' In this work, she shredded literary classics and then placed the shredded material into acrylic boxes labeled with the original book title.
In 1997 she presented the exhibition ''Segmentation/Multiplication: Three Taiwanese Artists'', with Marvin Minto FANG (范姜明道), TSONG Pu(莊普). After interviewing female textile workers, Wu was inspired to create ''Stories of Women from Hisin-Chuang'' (1997), where she wove the textile workers stories into a piece of cloth and installed it on a wall, hoping to reflect “how these women narrated their own lives”. Also in 1997, Wu made ''Epitaph'', a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the 228 incident.
In 1998 she was represented in the Bonn Woman's Museum in the exhibition "''Half the sky''" with the video work Histories ''of Woman'' by ''Hsing-Chang''. Also in 1998, Wu created ''Formosa Club'', inspired by both the debates on licensed prostitution in Taiwan and the broader question of the relationship between women and the economy. It was exhibited in the Taipei Fine Art Museum for the 1998 Taipei Biennial. Another notable work from this period is ''Birds Slide over the Sky (1998)'' which is about the displacement of Taiwanese men after World War II. One element of the work is a photograph of a now non-existent village Kuomingtang which relied on the military. A small mirror was placed opposite to the photograph, on it were the stories of different men.
From 1998-1999 Wu’s work was displayed at
MoMA PS1
MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution located in Court Square in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, th ...
as a part of the exhibition ''Inside Out: New Chinese Art''.
2000-Present
Since the 1990s she has produced a series of projects and criticized the state of social and political affairs from a feminist perspective in her works. Parallel to her practice, she led the translation of two important texts, Suzanne Lacy's ''Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art'' and Grant Kester's ''Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art,'' into Chinese.
From 2000-2004, Wu worked with the Taipei Awakening Association (TAA). After understanding the impact that the Awakening from Your Skin series had on a group of female textile workers, Wu decided to transform her practice into being more socially engaged. Additionally it was also her project, ''Bed Sheets of Soul (2001)'', that also pivoted her practice into becoming more socially engaged. In 2000 she invited by women's movements groups in Taipei to start working on this new project. What she created invited participants to reflect on their lives through making bedsheets. In her reflection “ Wu states that “the participants saw their values in a new light”.
In 2006 she worked with the Cultural Affairs Bureau in
Chiayi County
Chiayi County (Mandarin pinyin: ''jiā yì xiàn''; Hokkien POJ: ''Ka-gī-koān'') is a county in southwestern Taiwan surrounding but not including Chiayi City. It is the sixth largest county in Taiwan.
Name
The former Chinese placename was ...
to organize ''Art as Environment- A Cultural Action along the Tropic of Cancer''. For this project she brought together 17 artists in 10 remote villages. This project directly and indirectly led to more artists become community-based, which has also been a policy adopted by different levels of government. Also in 2006 she launched ''By the River, on the River, of the River – A Community Based Eco-Art Project (2006); Restore Our Rivers and Mountains – Along the Keelung River'', a collaboration with a community college attempting to stimulate discussion about rivers and current environmental issues. Wu has consistently dealt with ecological issues by adopting art as an approach to bridge culture and nature, demonstrating the potential for contemporary art and the vital personal energy of an artist.
In 2007, she organized a conference "''Art and Public Sphere: Working in Community''"—and later edited a volume of the same title—to unite local practitioners, theorists, and officials. She is also an art teacher, and heads the Graduate Institute of Interdisciplinary Art at
National Kaohsiung Normal University
The National Kaohsiung Normal University (NKNU; Kaohsiung Normal University),The name of the university is translated using Chinese word order. By English grammar rules, it is National Normal University of Kaohsiung. founded in 1967, is a public ...
in
Kaohsiung
Kaohsiung City (Mandarin Chinese: ; Wade–Giles: ''Kao¹-hsiung²;'' Pinyin: ''Gāoxióng'') is a special municipality located in southern Taiwan. It ranges from the coastal urban center to the rural Yushan Range with an area of . Kaohsi ...
. In 2014 she curated a large exhibition titled ''Art as Social Interaction'', showcasing socially engaged projects of 30 artists and groups from Taiwan and
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
. She is also active in building regional networks.
In 2011 Wu started one of her most well-known projects ''Art as Environment- A Cultural Action at the Plum Tree Creek'', which focused on restoring the Plum Tree Creek in Zhuwei area of New Taipei. The project included everything from community mobilization, school programs, dance and theater events. Wu was described as both the lead artist and curator.
In 2018 she was an artist in residence at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and co-curator of the 11th
Taipei Biennial
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM; ) is a museum in Zhongshan District, Taipei, Taiwan. It is in the Taipei Expo Park. The museum first opened on August 8, 1983, at the former site of the United States Taiwan Defense Command. It was the first ...
with Francesco Manacorda. The Biennial was focused on environmental issues, showing how socio ecological concerns have become a focus of Taiwan, especially in response to the referendum of November 24. Wu and Manacorda curated a multi-media exhibition featuring works such a Zheng Bo ��s “Pteridophilia” and Julian Charrière’s ''An Invitation to Disappear''. Both works touched on her socioecological theme.
Awards
''Art as Environment—A Cultural Action'' ''at the Plum Tree Creek'' (jointly produced with Bamboo Curtain Studio) won the Taishin Arts Award in 2013, the most prestigious art prize in Taiwan.
In 2016 Wu won the 19th National Award of Art.
Literature
*
Katy Deepwell
Katy Deepwell is a feminist art critic and academic, based in London. She is the founder and editor of ''n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal'', published 1998-2017, in 40 volumes by KT press. She founded KT press as a feminist not-f ...
''Mali Wu. A Profile.'' In: ''n.paradoxa. International Feminist Art Journal.'' Ed. Katy Deepwell, Vol. 5, November 1997, ISSN 1461-0434, S. 45–53. (english)
*
*Tung Wei Hsiu "When Social Practice Art Overcomes Globalisation: Attending to Environment and Locality in Taiwan" Culture and Dialogue 6, (2018) 223-250.