Taipei, Taiwan May 19. Earthquake in China and typhoon in Myanmar
dominate the Asian news each day, with sprinkles of Barack Obama and
Bush celebrating Israel. We, the artists of landings 8,
have spent the past 2 weeks at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum galleries D,
E and F. All of us recovering from some form of jet lag, culture shock
or fresh feelings of being in a physically clean space, watching
millions of people on mopeds wearing pollution masks.
So here we are in East Asia, riding on an art rhythm, 18 representing
28 personalities cultivated within two micro-regions. We brought our
art on DVDs, CDs and in backpacks. A multiplicity of meanings. No
captions. No return addresses. We jump from large planes with silk
parachutes grateful for a moment to shine in the Formosa sun. All
across a calligraphic criss-crossed city it says on beautiful turquoise
banners – a contemporary celebration @ Taipei art from the Caribbean
and Central America.
At the Chi-Hua University a student asks, “why do you leave your
orbit?” The museum statistics suggest that some 100,000 people will
visit our show, this figure must have come from a García Márquez novel,
for it represents 1/3 the population of Belize.
At a press conference two days before the opening we all wore black
t-shirts that say if you see something, say something. The Press said
nothing. It must have been because the director informed that they
won’t see the show until hours before the formal opening. Not ready yet!
As
I watch my brothers and sisters set up the many objects of the show, I
notice a long line of 8 year olds entering the education space next to
our gallery. They came in like organized cattle, young Taiwanese
citizens belonging to the Ma revolution – WE ARE READY!
The space for the exhibition is massive. Three galleries, thousands of square meters. A room like a China shop of delicate objects from the Ming dynasty. A room without a view, black, dark projecting videos of cruise ships, riots, tattoo parlours, the lonely sea, and sleepy homeless dogs. And a room with the sound of fire and Fidel.
Joan Duran, our beloved curator keeps pressuring me, “do you have unasletras’s text ready?” I go into soup shops, pass dried fruit markets, drink oolong and jasmine tea, buy jade for my dear wife and listen to my i-pod on the top of Taipei 101 – preparing for these simple words. I gather them with a sense and sensibility of a man complete with gratitude and honour. I look into the eyes of a new generation of artists and see the anxiety, elegance, grace, and emotion of conflict, contradiction and confrontation. We are the new representatives of a post-war, post-colonial, post-modern mix. A magical matrix of playlists and digital dialogue.
I keep asking Joan for guidance on this article, and he just says, “write something anyone should enjoy.” I know it will appear in the cyber space of unasleteras.
It is worth mentioning that the formality of our hosts really trip us up. The calm, exact, formal, delicate nature of the museum workers especially Sharleen press against our agitated bombastic arrogance. We enter this new space like gypsies on an evangelical mission.
I’m writing this text just hours from the opening. At 2:10 PM the president elect of Taiwan Ma Ying-jeou, a handsome Harvard Law School graduate who according to Time magazine brings, “a message of hope that could defuse his country’s nearly six-decade conflict with China,” will enter our landings 8 space. The museum director instructed Joan Duran that he has 3 minutes to introduce the artists to the president-elect.
At the Din Tai Fung dumpling restaurant with its 250 seats the normal waiting line, that stretches to the street, is one hour. So as I sat with Joan and two of our Taiwanese friends, Paul and Charles, I invoked this moment of our art history. How come we feel so comfortable outside our “orbit”?
It must be that you, the consumer of this text will read it thousands of miles away, just hours after I’ve written them. I’m listening to Mary J Blige, sipping ginger tea banging the keys of a Sony machine. You, just getting up in Mexico City or San Ignacio, Belize.
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