Re:Play

Departing from the body presentations in Taiwan’s visual art and experimental theater of the 1990s, the major annual C-LAB exhibition slated for October 2020, entitled Re: Play, will launch an exploration into corporeal expressions and behaviors that have become indicative of contemporary society. With live art as a foundation, the exhibition invites artists to intervene through performativity and to re-express the sensory state as it manifests in various temporal conditions by harnessing the power of language, the practice of behaviors, the movement of body, and the situational structures of fields. These sensory states are concretely and subtly presented through the body, including bodies ignored or neglected, requisitioned by the state, dispatched in neoliberal social structures, and trained and disciplined by daily life under a backdrop of historical specificity. On this foundation, the exhibition attempts to explore the practice and agency of performance and how they appear by extension, through three distinctive approaches.

Re: Play is organized by C-LAB in-house curator CHUANG Wei-Tzu and two guest curators Wang Po-Wei and River Lin, respectively in charge of the 3 constituent parts: Display on Live,  Archive on Live, and Performance Process. A group of 16 artists are invited to participate in live performances and multiple exploration of archives, narratives, spaces, objects, and the body.

Display on Live: deconstructing frameworks and reversing the daily life through reenactment, retelling, and intervention
Display on Live is directed by Chuang Wei-Tzu, in which she invites artists to explore the multi-layered meanings of narratives via reenactment, retracing, and manipulative intervention, portraying scenes from everyday life in an alienating form. The works of Samson Young, Siren Eun Young Jung, Su Hui-Yu, Joyce Ho, Snow Huang, Lee Kit and Chang Wen-Hsuan discuss how historical narratives are constructed under the specificity of time and space, and how creative artists challenge existing frameworks and constructed ideologies through performances, uncovering a hidden side of history. Wang Te-Yu, Chia Chien-Ju and Li Ming-Chen through their works also seek to bring surreal revelations to the audience inside commonplace spaces and daily experiences via installations and performances, offering audiences an opposing view of their imaginings towards C-LAB in the event.

Archive on Live: revisiting the body image of the 90s
At the Archive on Live, curator Wang Po-Wei retraces the body image of the 90s through revisiting archives and reorganizing narratives. In the 90s, influenced by rampant reactionary sentiments in the wake of the period of martial law in Taiwan, many artists used the body as a medium, in a time when individuals and society are eager to find self-identification and invoke one’s status. These endeavors take the form of exploratory exhibitions and performances, shaping a unique creative scene. Besides revisiting documents of significance and conducting interviews with associated personalities, the exhibition also sees the commissioning of Chen Wu-Kang to create 4 talk show pieces tailor-made from materials in the archives. Artist Kao Jun-Honn is also invited in a 4-part revival of his previous performance arts works, first conceived around the year 2000.

Performance Process: rehearsal and revisiting of the scene through workshops
Performance Process is comprised of 3 workshops, with the curator River Lin exploring the concept of agency in rehearsals and reenactments regarding the curatorial concepts. Alongside River Lin, artists Su Pin-Wen and duo artists Tseng Yen-Ting and Chiang Tao of Uncertain Studio explore in each workshop the actualization of group rehearsals and its possibilities, along the 3 vectors of Gutai art’s bodily experimentation, women’s rights movement & gender issues, and object & auditory performances.