Born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1979, CHENG Shih-Chun graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at Taipei National University of the Arts in 2003 and received his Master’s degree from the Graduate Institute of Plastic Arts at Tainan National University of the Arts. In 2001, CHENG started 284 ART SPACE with friends. He is known for his performance art and video installation. Since 2003, he has shown his performance art and video works around Taipei, Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, New York, the UK, Germany, Japan, Seoul, Gwanju, Pusan, Hong Kong, Macau, Russia, Portugal, the Philippines, Indonesia, and many other places. He has participated in Shanghai Biennial, SuperGeneration@TAIWAN, Taiwan Biennial, Co6 Taiwan Avant-Grade Document, Yi San Kun San-Documents Show of Chinese Performance Art, Solo Exhibition at Long March Space, OPEN 10th Anniversary” International Performance Art Festival, and etc. 

There is a great variety in Cheng’s performance styles, including ritualistic, theatrical, and game-like forms. His past experience in a rock band allows him to make the perfect use of music in his artistic practice. Compared with his fellow artists, his performance art is relatively offbeat and unpredictable for that he is known for using instinctive physical reaction to get on the society’s nerve by challenging the convention and disrupting viewers’ experiences. In his early works such as 2002’s Cycle and A Spiritual Feast as well as 2003’s Amor/Love and Clay Bodhisattva Crossing a River, the naked artist produces sperms, urine, and shit or shows his penis as a way to push artistic expression and the experience of viewing to the extreme. 

Developers Love Farmers is a small - scale performance which encourages audience to experience the paradoxical essence of the capitalist society in a humorous and light-hearted way. In the performance, the artist wants to bring up a question for audience to think upon: nowadays, we see land exploitation and construction everywhere. It is not only about the conflict between cities and the country. We have to deal with the change of a life style, reexamining the ideas of capital, social class, profession, reformation, development, progress, construction, urbanity, and civilization. 

CHENG Shih-Chun’s performance art is as unpredictable as his personality. He is convinced that the making of art should base on one’s instinct, while the instinct often demonstrates what the society desires to repress. Cheng liberates the instinct from the repressed body to create a sense of excitement and release, which he can fully enjoy and devote his whole life to. 

From 284 ART SPACE in his early days to the later RedSun Art&Design, his artistic practice challenges the conventional artistic concept and the categorization of artworks. He has once described that “behind my laughter, mockery, absurdity, and stubbornness…is the extremely optimistic spiritual faith which comes from the extreme hatred for the world.” His works visualize his belief of using one’s body to play a game and to fully play with the border of craziness. The uniqueness of his performance art comes from the theatricality of role-playing and scenario performing. He is particularly good at combing body and customized costume in his improvisation, through which he tries to encourage an interaction with audience and the surroundings. In his pursuit of excitement, he evokes the illusion of human’s psychological desire.