Su Hui-Yu: The Trio Hall / NEXUS

MoCA TAIPEI is pleased to present two new exhibitions, The Trio Hall, a solo exhibition by Su Hui-Yu, and NEXUS－Video and New Media Art from the Caribbean. The two exhibitions will open on May 6 and run through July 16, 2023.

Su Hui-Yu: The Trio Hall
Curator：Eugenio Viola

The Trio Hall, a solo exhibition by Su Hui-Yu, is the most significant institutional project to date by the Taiwanese-born internationally known artist, co-organized by Jing Moving Image. This exhibition is sponsored by the National Culture and Arts Foundation and it is specially conceived for the MoCA’s spaces.

The Trio Hall is curated by Eugenio Viola (Ph.D.), who is the current Chief Curator of MAMBO—the Bogotá Museum of Modern Art in Colombia and curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022. It is a multimedia site-specific exhibition and a film making-project that originates from the “Xan Ting” (in Chinese “three halls”) movie, a specific Taiwanese genre from the late 1970s, whose name originates from its three usual settings: living room, dining room, and disco clubs. This genre was also popular in TV variety shows, a North American cultural importation, like the modernist tradition in visual art. It reflected the escapism and subconscious desire for rebellion during the Taiwanese martial law era (1949-1987).

Su Hui-Yu is one of the most preeminent Taiwanese artists of his generation, whose practice reshapes reality through archival materials, employing “re-shooting” as an aesthetic strategy to create new works. He reexamines the past, the tabooed, misunderstood figures and events, often referencing Taiwan’s history and society.

The Trio Hall merges a kaleidoscope of references, exploring the connection between mass media, pop culture, memories of martial law, and the post-colonial history of Taiwan and East Asia, as always in the artist’s practice. A new series of photos, videos, and installations create an ironic collage of signs from past and present, East and West militarisms, TV shows and magazines, RGB and RYB color systems, logos, and allusions to the tradition of Modernism in the visual art.

The Trio Hall is a total environment that challenges the idea of a traditional exhibition because it is also conceived as a permanent TV production set. The main exhibition’s hall also operates as a shooting field, and three functional spaces are opened to the public while working on the postproduction of a film, which is still filmed inside the museum. Su Hui-Yu destabilizes here the function of visitors converted into active participants who are on display physically and emotionally engaged. At the same time, the artist transforms the museum into a territory open to experimentation.

Su Hui-Yu’s works have been exhibited at renowned festivals, biennials, exhibitions and art institutes worldwide, including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival, the Videonale (Bonn), Performa (New York), Rising (Melbourne), Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, Curitiba Biennial of Contemporary Art, MOCA Taipei, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, San Jose Museum of Art, Casino Luxembourg, Bangkok Arts and Culture Center, Kunsthalle Winterthur, 1646 Art Space (Den Haag), and Power Station of Art (Shanghai). In 2017, International Film Festival Rotterdam devoted a retrospective to his video works.

NEXUS－Video and New Media Art from the Caribbean
Curator：Sasha Dees

Artist：Christopher Cozier (Trinidad & Tobago)、Maksaens Denis (Haiti)、Nadia Huggins (St. Vincent & the Grenadines)、Sharelly Emanuelson (Curacao)、Rodell Warner (Trinidad & Tobago)、Sofía Gallisá Muriente & Natalia Lassalle-Morillo (Puerto Rico)

Curator Sasha Dees researched the infrastructure for contemporary art in the Caribbean which resulted in the publication Entangled Species. Conversations on Contemporary Art in the Caribbean (2021); she invites works from seven artists from the Caribbean to Taiwan. The title of this exhibition NEXUS creates an entry point beyond the obvious: paradise-like exotic islands. The works selected provoke a feeling of urgency to connect to move to a sustainable future in symbioses within the world ecosystem.

As a curator from the Netherlands Sasha Dees connected Taiwan in the Far East and Caribbean in the Far West (viewed from the Netherlands). From the 15–17th centuries, both Taiwan and the Caribbean region were colonies of the Netherlands and various countries. Colonialism (1500–1800) is what kick-started global politics driven by capitalism as a world system and is where our connection and entanglement started. Ever since Taiwan and the Caribbean continue to share issues like transnational labor, migration and immigration, environmental disasters, and constant imperialist threats by Europe, the USA, and/or The People’s Republic of China.

Seven artists from the Caribbean discuss six major issues, including transnational labor, immigration, climate and environment change, protest against politics, identity and sustainable development. Through the gaze of the artists from the Caribbean and their video works, NEXUS provides Taiwanese who face the same issues to reflect on the development of globalization. How the future will unfold depends on our ability and willingness to adjust, better our connections, and see the value and strength of a more coherent togetherness.