Born in Miaoli, Taiwan in 1977, CHIU Chao-Tsai graduated from the National Institute of the Arts (the Taipei National University of the Arts now)in 2000 and received his master’s degree from the Department of Fine Arts at Taipei National University of the Arts in 2004. Throughout his artistic career, he has been known for his unique installation of “interactive toy-like sculpture” and the interactive relationship between works and viewers.
Since 1999, he has continued experimenting on how mixed media can create interactive installations (toys)which encourage game-like thinking. People’s movement triggers these toys to make sound. These works include Marble Fall into the Dish(2001), Soundless series(2002-2004), Sitting and Watching (2002), Yi(2003), 1/2(2008), and etc. In 2004, he started to develop the weakened images of the saints Seven Sages’ Gossip Room, lowering the heads of these confident figures. The concept was further explored in The World of Fatigue in 2008. Meanwhile, In Between in 2007 touches upon how viewers’ participation changes the image. Both series talk about the active participation and the change of meaning by shattering the boundary between the high and the low, the soft and the hard, or between you and me. The preexisting understanding and perspective are thus reversed.
Chiu transforms serious subjects into game-like installations(toys). When one operates the work, he/she creates various potentialities to reverse, bury, or reveal the meaning of the work. Chiu’s toys not only challenge the untouchable rules of an artwork but also reflect how an artwork plays with the diverse relationship between creation and manipulation or between the self and the others.
The work uses segmented moving frame to change the structure of the words. The complete text includes you, me, and him / her. The frame slides horizontally, fragmentizing the original text. The readable words thus become unreadable. Chiu hopes that viewers’ operation and participation can change the status of the work. Meanwhile, the transformation between meaning and image provides viewers a chance to get away from the given connotation and to find a new space for independent thinking.
Adopting a game-like attitude to deal with social relations is an interesting aesthetic trend among the artists of the 1970's generation. In 2001, art critic and curator Chia Chi Jason Wang has mentioned his observation on the subjects of “revisiting childhood” in the works of young Taiwanese artists, describing how they “revisit the childhood experiences to go over from the self.” Through the childhood experiences, they “gaze into, deconstruct, question, or tear down” the social reality in the world of the grown-up.
“Game” is human’s first experience to play with objects and to deal with one’s relation with the community and the space. Chiu’s toys follow the same spirit. Viewers are invited to play with the toys so that they might get a sense of what the artist wants to express through the works.
Chinese title: | 之間 – 誰 |
English title: | In between – Whom |
Decade: | 2007 |
Medium / Classification: | Mixed Media |
Dimensions: | 36×240×7 cm |
Artist: | CHIU Chao-Tsai |
Life-span: | 1977 - |
Collection Unit: | Collection of the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts |
Contact method for authorization: | http://www.chiuchaotsai.com National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts |
Related Exhibition: | "The Pioneers" of Taiwanese Artists, 1971-1980 |