Feminist Art in Taiwan: Textures of Reality and Dreams

Traditionally, many books written on modernization and development contrast the traditional culture to the political , social, and economic changes of the contemporary society. When we read about Taiwan, there is a general introduction about shamanism and native traditions, or Confucianism and Chinese rule, or for the more sophisticated, the colonial legacies of Japanese imperialism which focused on native or indigenous folk art. Then there is the mad dash into the chapters on change: population growth, urbanization, political reform, economic progress, social re-organization, and gender roles. However, there is usually no chapter or discussion on cultural and artistic changes. The reader is left with a picture of a Taiwan with an aesthetic and creative tradition frozen in an earlier time and seen as just an extension of Chinese culture. The Taipei Government and Tourist Offices reserve Classical Chinese opera for special events and as a "show-piece" for Western visitors. "Traditional" temples bang out their nativistic music, their ritualized prayers, and clouds of incense. Many foreign journalistic and public relations reports on Taiwan just promote cultural events and night life that mimic Western tastes. This includes the everything from the pervasive knock-offs of Western pop music, to high class performances of Western orchestras in the Chiang Kai-shek memorial hall. .

The denial of the existence of a modern culture, whether intentional or unintentional, results into two basic cultural negative consequences: 1) the observer believes that Taiwan is split between the "cultured" past of its local rituals or its Chinese traditions, and the bareness of modernization; or 2) the observer is conned into believing that there is no "culture" in Taiwan except for the dominance of Western imports.

Contrary to the above popular impressions, the reality is that there is a vibrant culture in Taiwan's artistic circles that is gaining international influence and that is becoming distinctly and authentically Taiwanese. The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief background on the traditional limitations of women's art, and to make known that the freedom for women artists occurred only after the end of martial law in 1987. The description and analysis focuses only on four women artists-three painters and one installationist. Needless to say, this selection does not provide a complete account of female talent in Taiwan. It is hoped, that this introduction will encourage more attention to women artists and to incorporating their importance in forthcoming studies on Taiwan.

THE HISTORICAL SETTING.

During most of Chinese history, the major female practitioners of Chinese art were developed by concubines or prostitutes. Their art was derivative of male parlor art- women in service positions-- such as arranging flowers, playing with children, or being engaged in women's occupations such as weaving or silk production. Women learned calligraphy in order to teach their sons the arts of the Mandarin. Male artists would paint historically important women such as Yang Kuei-fei. There were also male authored "pillow" books which narrated and illustrated the arts of love. In all of these works, the woman was restricted to men's ideas about her social and sexual role.(1)

In the twentieth century art began to take on a new role. For both men and women, art served the purpose of politics. Under both the Nationalist Chinese and the Communists, artists were mobilized to reflect in their artwork the principles and values of the political leadership. Under the Nationalists, the artistic themes included portraits of the great leaders of China. They included Confucius and great patriots like Chu Yuan. Traditional topics were also encouraged: calligraphy, plum blossoms, lions, landscapes, and historical events. The Chinese Communists opposed any type of "art for art's sake". They engineered art projects to depict model workers, model patriots, model martyrs. The exaggeration of feminist bodies in terms of their proportions and healthiness reflected the values of Soviet theories of monumentalism. A romantic vision of the Chinese revolution, the struggle against Japan, and the creation of a socialist state insinuated itself in all government sponsored works. One famous piece showed the Long March in the genre of Chinese landscapes. Little figures struggled up the mountains which were brazenly colored red and which jutted out through the clouds. Needless to say, the Communist Party dictated the aesthetic and the production of Chinese "art." Because of the policies of the Party, all art during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) was not signed by the artist. There is no obvious way to know the gender of the artist. In any case, the art was not very creative. It was produced under the strictures of a committee, and was used as propaganda for mass movements. The individual artist had no chance to develop his or her abilities.

Meanwhile on Taiwan, the Japanese had taken over control of artistic expression from 1895 to 1945. Japanese rule allowed for a few female artists to attend the Tokyo Art School. The current style at that time was to use water colors and oils to paint in the mode of Western impressionism. There were many works devoted to Taiwan's landscape, to people in their villages, to families on a picnic, and to portraits of common people. Several well-known artists painted pictures of their wives and daughters. It was a very homey, non-utilitarian creation. After Japan's surrender in 1945, not only did Taiwan's political rulers change, but also the artistic world. The Nationalists were prejudiced against the Japanese trained artists. Chiang Kai-shek's government was committed to retaining and enforcing traditional Chinese culture. Taiwan's native artists were seen as lackeys to the Japanese, and as unorthodox.

A brief history of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum reflects the political uses of art during Nationalist rule. Until the mid-1970's, the government only supported the fine arts of classical China. The great National Palace Museum of Art housed magnificent pieces of art that were crated and carted to Taiwan by the Nationalists just before the Communist victory in 1949.

In 1976, under the guidance of the government's Central Cultural Policy, Taipei Mayor Lin Yang-kang ordered the creation of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Seven years later, in 1983, the building was completed and the first public exhibition was opened on December 24th, 1983. The first acting director, Ms. Su Jui-p'ing, was a native of Shansi, China. She received her MA in art history from the Chinese Cultural College in Taiwan, and another MA in art history from Columbia University. She worked in the National Palace Museum for sixteen years as a calligrapher and researcher in the Painting department. Her successor, Mr. Huang Kuang-nan, became the first director in 1986 and served until 1995. Mr. Huang has a sterling academic record in fine arts, literature and calligraphy. His areas of expertise are Chinese flower and bird painting, and the history of Chinese painting. Both directors promoted classic Chinese art over modern art or Taiwanese native art. During their tenure, there was never a special exhibition of Taiwanese artists, nor of female artists. The art collection emphasized the modernization of Chinese art-calligraphy, landscapes, flora, fauna, birds, and depictions of Chinese and Taiwanese history.

WOMEN AND WOMEN'S ART IN TAIWAN

The end of martial law in 1987 resulted in a frenzied dance of artistic expression. With the end of martial law came not only the freedom to travel abroad, but the freedom to return home. Many artists returned from their self-imposed exile in Spain, France, Germany, Canada, and, of course, the United States. In the words of Victoria Lu Rong-chi, a foremost art critic and writer in Taiwan:

The 1990s have so far seen increasingly bizarre art in a stylistic sense, and a hesitant overall sense of human development as humanity wavers back and forth on the brink of change, unable to decide where to turn.

In the early 1990's, together with the diversification of political views and fracture of social mores, culture displayed unprecedented diversity in Taiwan. Art promotion, formerly the exclusive territory of officialdom, was opened to participation from all sectors of society to become a diversified order. . . . artists became prime movers in artistic promotion.(2)

The end of martial freed the male artist from his parlor art. Many used drawings of women to express their views on sexual identity, or political resistance. Ho Chun-ming, born in 1963 in Chia-yi, graduated from Taiwan's National Institute of Art. His "Costs of Desire" embraced porno-pop imagery to depict a world gone mad with lust, pain, and torture. Regarding one of his ink drawings that depict a rather vulgar birthing process, he commented that the separation from women will make one die.

The most infamous case of politicizing the nude female was initiated by Chang Chen-yu. Taipei Mayor Chen Shui-bian appointed the maverick painter Chang Chen you- to the position of director of the museum. He lasted just nine months, from September 1995 to June 1996. Chang, from a Hakka family born in 1957 in Taichung, studied art in Taiwan's National Normal University and at the State University of New York (1987). Artistically he is best known for his nudes. Intellectually, he is a neo-Marxist. After years of hiding his thoughts under martial law, he states his manifesto without apology or fear from arrest, detention, or torture.

I have the responsibility to make the art world involved in justice. Art must be spontaneous and not be ruled by colonial and cultural hegemonists. If our society is run by these forces, then we will live in a bad eco-system and not survive. My nudes are not painted for an artistic reason. I do not put clothes on my young female images clothes indicate social status and class meaning. A nude represents everyone's state of mind. And most of my nudes are teenagers because this is the most curious stage of life. (Interview with the artist, Taipei, 1998)

Of course, he was attacked by the politicians who stressed Taiwan's links with tradition. The City Council, composed of pro-Mainlander parties, insisted that Chang should resign. He did. And his published works were withdrawn from the Museum's bookshop.

On the wall in Mayor Chen's living room there is a 4' x 3' painting by Chang Chen-yu entitled, "Under the Martial Law." Clearly revealing the style of his mentor, Balthus, Chang portrays a naked teenager kneeling over two open books-a small western book tucked inside a large traditionally bound Chinese text. A red imperial or colonial chair obstructs the view of her body between her knees and her stomach. The chair represents the dictatorwhose absent presence still threatens the vulnerableareas of her naked body. The young woman is reading a small 'unauthorized" book which she can hide in the larger text on the Chinese classics. She reads in a an awkward kneeling position, with one leg half raised, and theother receiving the force of gravity on her kneecap.This off-balanced position displays the fact that she cannot really stand up for her own views, and yet she is willing to engage in a subversive activity to develop her own identity. Chang's allegory is almost as direct as his oral ideological testimony The colonial chair represents the Mainlander government which has colonized Taiwan; the nude body represents all Taiwanese who have been forced to succumb to the Chinese educational and cultural system; the red color of the chair represents Chinese chauvinism. The title "Under the Martial law" refers not only to the legal tyranny from 1947-1987, but more importantly to the spiritual and emotional subjugation under Mainlander rule.

Both Ho's and Chang's work are utilitarian. They use the female body to express their own ideologies and commitments. Although functionally similar to Chinese traditional art, their art can be viewed as revolutionary because it breaks the pattern of viewing women just for the consumer tastes of men. Women are no longer a utensil to promote the male world. Their art opens up the workhouses which kept female artists reproducing classical styles of calligraphy, and nature painting.

In the last twelve years Taiwan's female artists have displayed a diverse group of identities. Initially, many eschewed the utilitarianism of direct political commentary. Their collective experience made them wary of being used by yet another powerful institution. Some did engage in explicit sexual identity searches; others took up the issues of pornography; and others returned to the traditional images but with a luxurious or modernistic flair that openly challenged the way of the masters. Women artists in Taiwan are just getting acquainted with their art forms, their relationships to the history of Taiwan, the history of the feminist movement, and the history of international art scene. What follows is just an introduction to four different female artists. It is not an attempt to create an organizing frame of reference, nor an attempt to challenge them into a narrow definition of female art. Many, many other artists could have been chosen. But these four signify for me that part of feminist art which attempts to express deep, personal feelings of freedom.Gender becomes the focus, but not necessarily in the scatological and porno-pop manner indulged in by male artists. Shocking the viewer is not given a premium in this type of art. The consumer is "seduced" by the subtlety, the sense of feeling, and the invitation to enjoy the textures of reality and dreams.

Four Artists: Yan Ming-huy

The earliest expressions of feminist art occurred in the late 1980's and were derivative from Western modern themes. Yan Ming-huy ,was born in 1956 in Pu-Tze, Taiwan, and studied at the State University of New York, Albany. She "was the first female artist in Taiwan to express an explicitly feminist creative consciousness." (3) Yan's "Three Apples" was completed in 1988. Two largedelicious apples squeeze between them a slice of applewith an exposed seed pod. There is no way to shield the obvious influence of Judy Chicago's feminist symbolism. The large, formal symbol of a red Washington Delicious appleis associated with Western ideas, the natural world, and a gateway of oral pleasure. The close-up abundance of the apples' redness juxtaposed to the seed pod and its obvious vaginal form creates a subliminal message. But this message is not broadcast to an eager carnal audience. The painting is just the observation of an apple. It may symbolize Eve, seduction, and sensuality. But it is not a piece of propaganda that has a direct message. Its meaning is multilayered. Its message must be interpreted by the viewer. Yan's feminist art emphasizes the natural environment-its textures, and its double entendres.

Chen Hsin-wan, born in Taichung in 1951, allied her paintings with the spontaneity of dance movements. Her 1992 painting "In search of life," co-opts a calligraphic style of ink on paper to break from the rigid structural traditions of brush stroke in order to create an aesthetic statement for freedom. The brush strokes use a natural flow that suggest the ink is controlled by a spontaneous pull of gravity. There is a grace and serenity in the narrow descending strokes that remind one of antennae seeking contact with and explanation of the world. The energy of the painting derives from an sense of the traditional Wu-wei, or do nothing sense of Chinese Taoist expressionism. There is no outlined or pre-meditated form. This painting engages in pure expression liberated from formalized figures. It is designed to promote a personal search without any external authority.

Chen's drip method engages the viewerintothinking about the natural flow of life.It reminds one of Louise Frankenthaller's method of soaking the paper and dripping the ink. This style enforces the conclusion that the artist does not control his or her own creation. Chen's style is a statement against the political, social, and economic controls that seem to confront and possibly subjugate the Taiwanese citizen caught up in the tentacles of rapid modernization. It is a call for each person to find his or her personal energy and movement-and to roam free.

Wu Mali, born 1957 in Taipei, graduated in 1986 from the National Academy of Arts in Dusseldorf. She became known at first by her translations of German Dadaist texts. Rather than attacking the icons directly, Ms. Wu employs allegorical and symbolic expressions to break down the original meanings of words or traditions to mock or satirize Taiwan's plunge into capitalism. Her 1991 installation, "Prosperity car" showroomsa gold carmade out of two large geometric blocks representing the cab and the van, painted in gold and placed on four tires with gold hub caps. On the "hood" of the car is a red bow looking like the teased up wrapping tape on a present. The installation of a boxy car is a parody on Taiwan's hyper industrialization. The car is hollow, yet so covered with gold paint that it is opaque. One cannot see the driver, if any. The solid gold does not allow for either transparent windows or hinge able and functioning doors. There is no place to enter. The irony of the color is that in China it represents permanency and wealth. The "Made in Taiwan" label has made Taiwan wealthy, but to what end? There is a complete dislocation with the natural, with the organic, with life itself.

The attachment of the red bow to the hood of the model car reminds one of the kiss of Bishop Lamourette. This cleric, with the burlesque stage-like name of "a passing infatuation" was a deputy in the National Assembly during the terror of the French Revolution. At the height of the legalistic denunciations, he called upon all the deputies and officials, including the King, to kiss each other in order to show signs of affection and love for one another. After the kissing, the Assembly began to devour its own with the use of the guillotine. This historical event could match any Dadaist history. Ms. Ma's Dadaism is expressed in the presentation of a wrapping commonly used to be the flourish on a present. This bow is attached to the cold inanimate vehicle without a driver and without any visible drive shaft to give it motion.. It is a useless hunk of ersatz gold which cannot nurture life and whose presence seems to substitute for the gods of old. It seems to say: worship me with your sacrifice of your life for wealth. Make me into a gift for your civilization, then go out and put your head under the guillotine of the Taiwan Miracle.

Ms. Ma's return to Taiwan was filled with social protest and political activism. She combined the artistic and social criticism of her mentor, Joseph Beuys. He was the most famous post-war modernist German artist. On the one hand, he condemned Germany's genocidal policies during prior to and during the war. On the other hand, he was not openly propagandistic. His method and message were to find simple artifacts and then find paradisaic and arcane references to the real world. He would surround his work with vast areas of space in order to isolate the object from reality, and thus examine it in a pure state. His artifacts would usually be broken or withered objects. These would be products that were no longer useful, and their role in the art would often be inscrutable. Often there would be writings that were either unintelligible or indecipherable.

Beuys' indelible contribution to Ms. Ma's work is apparent in the way she isolates the car in a full corner of the Museum. Her motorless car on a museum floor, kissed by a bouquet that will fade in the sun or be covered by the dust from the polluted air, highlights its bizarre value in our motorized society.

Ms. Ma studies abroad coincided propitiously with the advent of installation art. Experimentation with new forms of art that included cross over into various media forms was fueled by strong political and social iconoclasm. The primary target was the art world itself. The new artists wanted to reject the commodification of art. They did not want themselves or their art to be directly marketable, nor demeaned with a "for sale" sign. Their resentment toward the art dealers and the elite art institutions were manifested in the impermanence of their installations. Their art was momentary-set up with materials or in a manner that could not be reproduced or displayed on someone's bedroom or living room wall. This art had no investment value. It would only wither or become soiled with age. It was too big, too bulky, and with mixed media arrangements, too loud or unwieldy to be packaged, moved, and arranged in a storage area or hung decoratively in someone's living space.

This type of art best reflected the pluralistic, temporary, and experimental existence of modern society. This art form became the darling of many who sought to connect issues of ethnicity, gender and access with the compelling political questions of modernization, individual integrity, and gender. Installing a room filled with music and images, or a corridor filled with videos and apparitions forced the observer to relate the experience to his or her own life. The installation provided the viewer with a mixture of reality-being there; of texture-walking through or around the constructed art form; and of dreams-seeking to understand the work in a non-rational way. And, finally, once the exhibit was over, the opportunity to experience the event was gone forever.

It may be premature to conclude that installation art can find support from Taiwan's cultural tradition. Without supportive quantitative documentation, it may be far afield to suggest that the shamanistic tradition of public sacred theater, the popularity of Taiwanese puppet shows and folk opera, and the open-air fairs of traditional Taiwanese cults and performances make the acceptance of histrionic and installation art acceptable and appreciated.

Ms. Ma's 1997 installation called "Epitaph" creates a room: two walls with written messages border a large video screen at the end of the hallway. The screen has images of the ocean churning on rocks. The viewer is once again looking at the artistic artifact through the space of a corridor with a vision of endless sky and ocean at the far end. The enigmatic title, "Epitaph," seems to imply that this piece is in memory of the deceased. The ambiguous meaning of the writing on walls makes it appear that the meaning of our lives and histories are vague and inchoate. Like her German mentor, she calls on us to find meanings in ourselves and not in outside authorities. We are left to engage with the installation as though it were a shrine-the rhythms of nature at a distance further displace us from the present by electronic technology We are in a timeless tomb. We leave it, carrying only our emotional reactions to the induced dreams. There is no way at all that we would want to take it home and put it in the corridor to our own bedroom.

Chiu Tse-yan was born in Pin-ton Taiwan in 1961 and graduated from Taipei Normal University in 1984. She has developed a sur-realist probe into the flesh of Taiwan's beastly economic and political body. Utilizing charcoal drawings which are illuminating strategic places by a strong spotlight, she seems to connect herself to the Zen tradition of using black, grey and brown colors. There are no erotic reds, or distancing blues-no heat and no depth. The mysticism of these Zen paintingsinduced an emotional quality that wassubdued, and rejected the emotional impact for the world of the irrational or surreal.

Chiu'sDreamland of Night Walk was shown in 1993 in an exhibition at the Taiwan Gallery, entitled Animals and their Souls. The drawing appears three dimensional: The somber chalk-white moon-like landscape reveals a deep hole in the shape of an off-centered cross. Inside this excavation is a partially obscured egg formation . And above the massive hole is a wolf launched in the air. Behind the muzzle, in the dark sky, there is a shimmer of bright light.

Although not expressing the traditional values of feminist art in terms of sexual identity, and political protest, her work deserves recognition for qualities that have been developed by women who are trying to reach new levels of understanding about themselves and their society. : these features include the eerie abyss, , the elliptical shape of the egg contrasted to the rough edges of the sunken cross, and the absence of human beings. Chiu complements the Taiwanese feminist approach to gender by blurring the gender roles. What is the meaning of the juxtaposition of the leaping wolf over the partially submerged egg? Why is the hole shaped like a sunken yet misshaped cross? The work's use of organic and natural forms of its grey lines clearly marks it in the category of feminist texts which favor components of naturalism. Chiu's art expresses dreams of silence and of wonder. They encourage the viewer to look inside oneself. Their cold, dark presenting creates a quiet, mysticism that is nurturing, and not a call to action.

Conclusion.

Art provides a pattern to the consciousness. And it is out of the mind 's repository that all things are created. What appears almost incredible is the rapidity and ingenuity in which Taiwan's artists react to their experiences. Although they never seem to be at a loss to create innovative artistic products, it is obvious that they have not yet discovered their own voice. The female artists of the nineties primarily received their training from male artists and in studios that still featured the classics of Chinese tradition. The new, younger female artists will have studied from their female mentors. They will produce a very different type of Taiwanese art-one which will become more distant from both traditional China and the West. As we come to appreciate, discuss, and recognize their interpretations of the changing realities of life, we too will expand our own sensitivities and our own feelings about historical memory, the reality of change, and of the appreciation for the future. Their art will soon make up our visions of ourselves, and our possibilities. The artistic creations and expressions of the next generation of Taiwanese female arts will become register on our own emotional compasses. We will begin to hold onto their visions as our own. Their freedom to follow the paths to their own discoveries will become inextricably related to our own freedoms to interpret and communicate the aesthetic value of our own experiences. A true Taiwanese art will become part of the internationalism of artistic expression that we can appreciate and draw upon for our own depictions of reality and our own source of dreams.

Footnotes

1. See Liao Wen, "Tumultuous History of China's Feminist Values and Art," in Chinese Contemporary Art, online magazine, 1998. http://www.chinese-art.com/volume1issue2/)

2. "New Art, New Tribes, cited in The Contemporary Art of Taiwan. Australia: G+B Arts International, 1995. p. 74.

3. Victoria Y. Lu, "Striving for a Cultural Identity in the Maze of Power Struggles: A Brief Introduction to the Development of Contemporary Art of Taiwan," in Gao Minglu, ed. Inside Out: New Chinese Art. San Francisco Museum of Art: University of California Press, 1998. p.170.