After being invited by the Taipei City government’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the Shanghai Art Museum held an exhibition called “Infantization” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei in Spring 2008. Planned by Ching Chang, its rich presentation and deep exploration of China’s new-generation aesthetics aroused discussion on many levels. Whether viewers discuss the aesthetic with positive or negative ideas of “generation,” the exhibition not only initiated another wave of attention and discussion regarding these young artists, but promoted opportunities for a cross-strait exchange of contemporary art.
In addition to actively introducing the new wave of international contemporary art with its exhibitions over the years, MOCA Taipei has constantly paid much attention to and gained publicity for the young generation of artists’ works. In the end of 2009, MOCA Taipei gathered hundreds of works from thirty-three new-generation artists to be presented grandly at the Shanghai Art Museum. Besides corresponding to the visual feast “Infantization” brought to viewers in Taiwan, MOCA Taipei hopes to contribute and share the lively, diverse aesthetic images and colorful, splendid art imagination of Taiwan’s current generation with the large number of viewers in Shanghai.
This is the first time an overseas exhibition has been arranged by MOCA Taipei since it opened in 2001. It is different from the traditional exchange of gallery exhibitions, which typically uses a gallery’s collection as the main works. SuperGeneration@Taiwan is expected to express the “live the moment” spirit and state of modern art, constantly advancing thoughts and ongoing debates. Most importantly, the exhibited content is intended to make viewers share and request ideas, not confining itself to any fixed set of art standards. Instead, it presents a group of artists from Taiwan and a cultural phenomenon from a particular era that is still under development.
To organize the work in a concise form, the scheme of the exhibition begins from each artist’s personal perspective. Also, this helps indicate the various creative qualities of Taiwanese artists born in the 70s and 80s. The overall structure of the group exhibition has been established with a broader view. By using a technique of multiple-level contrast, the present condition of contemporary art in Taiwan has been described inclusively. Similar to the “de-centralized” concept of Postmodernism, the idea of the exhibition is to make every participating artist a key topic. Every work represents a different phase of Taiwan’s new-generation art. Exploring differing materials, techniques and issues, the thirty-three artists clearly show their aesthetic environment and tendency to express art through varying fields.
In terms of media, the exhibition includes interactive installation, sculpture, painting, video, etc. However, the design of SuperGeneration broadens the horizon of media classification and focuses on a different appreciation structure. The participating artists are: KEA, Alice Wang, Cola King, Joyce Ho, Keng-Chen Wu, Pei-Shih Tu, Yu-Cheng Chou, Chu-Wang Chou, Tai-Fong Lin, Chung-Han Yao, Mr. Red, Shih-Pin Hsi, Wei-Hui Hsu, LOGICO, Li-Ren Chang, Keng-Hwa Chang, Keng-Hau Chang, Chia-Ying Chang, Tang-Wei Hsu, Chih-Chien Chen, Yi-Chieh Chen, Wan-Jen Chen, Wei-Ling Chen, Tseng-Yu Chin, Shu-Fen Tseng, Po-Chih Huang, Ning Huang, Yi-Li Yeh, Ou-Bau Tsai, Shih-Chun Cheng, Lai Yi-Chih, and Mu-Chi Hsieh. These artists have been invited to represent the totally new “SuperGeneration” aesthetic.