Body Grid – Consciousness in Interstice of Chair Group Exhibition

【 Body Grid – Consciousness in Interstice of Chair Group Exhibition】

Date｜2017/2/4 Sat.-3/12 Sun. Opening｜2017/2/4 Sat.15:00 Artists: I-Ming, Eleng Luluan, Hei-Hung Wu, Cheng-Liang Li, Wei-Mu Lee,

Chien-Chih Lin, Chun-Sheng Lee, Chien-Chih Chen, Chen-Yu Yeh,

Chien-Chung Liao, Chun-Min Tsai Curator: Yuan-Ta Hsu

【Statement】 Grid means framework of crossing bar, using certain materials to form repeated banding, grid pattern or net to block, cut off or filter some people, things or concepts. Here, body grid aims to visualize the consciousness in art creation, enabling viewers to perceive each artist’s material, environment, aesthetics, politics, ethics and social intention in their making of chairs through the exhibition.

The purpose of the joint exhibition lies in pointing out each artist’s consciousness in making chair so as to illustrate ideas from creators, materials, chairs to interaction between users. Chair, apart from its physical function of rest or helping relieve body, also reveals many of its social function in its interstices, concealing the consciousness of a creator that derives from his or her aesthetics, accepted social norms or specific functions like throne, emperor’s chair, chairman chair, armchair, surgeon’s chair, counter chair, Accubita, Triclinium, Stibadium and opium chair in the early period of Taiwan. Other than that, natural environment and climate can also influence material and type of chair, like stone chair, wooden chair (made from local wood) or bamboo chair. For instance, Nantou and Chiayi abounds in making bamboo furniture, Ilan and Chiayi are rich in wood processing industry because of forestry in Taiping Mountain and Ali Mountain, and stone products thrive in Hualien for its abundance of stone. Besides, material of chair varies with climate effect. For example, airtight materials like leather and flannel are suitably produced in temperate countries, while materials like stone, wood, bamboo, rattan and linen are mostly seen in tropical and subtropical areas. Chair can be seen as an interactive domain for body and object, a regulation or filter for body that conducts restriction and direction for body in the process of interaction. Consciousness and thinking of artists become interstice, which acts like grid to filter a user’s body status. Creators masterly make their consciousness flow between materials and forms, either reliving or confining body. After the globalization of modern aesthetics, the originally sitting or lying status of body is gradually eliminated. It turns out that merely the design of form can dominate the look of chair. Body becomes the appendage to vision, presenting its twisted posture under the direction of modernism. Chair shapes a user’s body with its interstices and braces. When a body fills interstices of a chair, it becomes the sculpture made by artist. Take armchair for instance, its interstices teem with ethics that shows restriction and regulation put on body in public space in Chinese traditional society. Therefore, the back that is not long and the faceplate that is too short form a 90-degree interstice, waiting for a body to fill and further making the act of sitting straight an ideal behavior fitting the code of ethics.

The exhibition shows the works of I-Ming, Eleng Luluan, Wei-Hung Wu, Cheng-Liang Lee, Wei-Mu Lee, Chien-Chih Lin, A-Shui (Jun-Sheng Lee), Chien-Chih Chen, Chen-Yu Yeh, Chien-Chung Liao, Chun-Min Tsai, who are artists of backgrounds from Taiwanese aborigine, art institute, theater, and architecture. The exhibition expects artists to present imagination and practice of chair through manifold backgrounds. In chairs made by these artists, we can look into the acts between standing and sitting, as well as between movement and stillness, seeing how artists put certain body grid on people sitting on chairs by means of their consciousness, materials and aesthetics. Host: Fotoaura institute of photography Co-host: Absolute Space for the arts Sponsor: Tainan City Government