Taiwan Pavilion and Hong Kong Pavilion at Venice

Lu Pei-Yi To Be or Not to Be a National Pavilion: Taiwan Pavilion and Hong Kong Pavilion at Venice

stablished in 1895, the Venice Biennale is the world’s oldest and most prestigious art exposition. Its unique structure consists mainly of Ea thematic pavilion organized by Biennale directors and national pavilions featuring artists chosen by the represented nation. The idea of a national pavilion can be traced back to the nineteenth-century world exposition model that emphasizes international competition through peaceful means. This model echoed the mentality of imperialist colonial expansion and represented the desire of nation-state construction. However, in the twenty-ﬁrst century, the concept of nation-state is experiencing the increasing phenomenon of deterritorialization via the Internet, immigration, and the operations of global capital. If this is the case, how should we reconsider the mechanism of the national pavilion in the Venice Biennale?

Many debates have risen in the past few years that question this problematic notion of the national pavilion. For example, the Spanish Pavilion at Venice in 2005 showed Santiago Sierra who allowed only visitors with a Spanish passport to enter the pavilion. In 2009, British artist Liam Gillick was invited to show in the German Pavilion, in 2011the Poland Pavilion was represented by Israel artist Yael Bartana, and in 2013 Germany and France exchanged their pavilion venues. However, could such approaches toward national pavilions be generated in some of the more politically marginalized regions such as Taiwan and Hong Kong, both of which have experienced political complications with mainland China?

The first Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale was in 1995, when Taiwan was added to the official list of national pavilions under the name of R.O.C Taiwan–Taipei, which is how it participated in the two Biennales that followed. But, after 2001, as a result of China’s obstruction,1 the Taiwan Pavilion was forced to abandon its national pavilion status and thereafter was listed as a collateral event. The year 2001 also marked Hong Kong’s first participation under the name of Hong Kong, China.

In 2013, both the Taiwan and Hong Kong Pavilions encountered great concerns within their respective art communities because of their selection process. The chosen proposal for the Taiwan Pavilion, by curator Esther Lu, called for three projects, but included only one Taiwanese artist. This decision raised considerable criticism, in particular doubt about what a Taiwan Pavilion now actually means. And unlike the previous open call for curatorial projects for the Hong Kong Pavilion, M+ (a new museum

38 Vol. 12 No. 5 for visual culture to open in Hong Kong in 2017, but currently producing projects) was directly invited by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) to organize the presentation at the 2013 Pavilion, curated by M+ director Lars Nittve, and this particular process prompted the concern that the organizers were working “within a black box (),” in other words, lacking in transparency.

Although Taiwan and Hong Kong are listed as collateral events at Venice, they actually act like national pavilions. I would argue that we should understand them as the “Taiwan Pavilion,” and the Hong Kong (China) Pavilion—the quotation marks and the deletion mark suggesting ambiguity in light of their efforts to distinguish themselves from China. This struggle of “to be or not to be a national pavilion,” one based on complex anxieties, might aggravate rather than alter, or even reverse, the problematic status of national pavilions at the Venice Biennale.

Hou Chun-ming, prints on Taiwan is a National Pavilion (1995–2001) paper, 153.5 x 107.5 cm each, 1995 Venice Biennale. Courtesy The initial participation of the Taiwan Pavilion in 1995 was under the title of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts. of ARTTAIWAN. This exhibition presented ﬁve selected artists’ works in the Palazzo delle Prigioni, near the tourist destination of Palazzo San Marco, and this site has served as Taiwan’s participation ever since. Attendance at the Venice Biennale was seen as a crucial breakthrough for Taiwan after such a long period of diplomatic exclusion—since 1971—the year when Taiwan was expelled from the United Nations and China replaced its seat. In addition, the emergence of the Taiwan Pavilion not only echoed the quest for Taiwanese identity after the lifting of martial law in 1987, but also embodied a speciﬁc concept of the “new Taiwanese,”2 a term coined

Vol. 12 No. 5 39 by President Lee Teng-Hui that Foreground: Huang Chih- yang, The Afforestation Plan same year, as a means to bridge B: Mountains and Water, mixed media, 400 x 400 cm. internally the ethnic divide and Background: Maternity Room, 1992, ink on rice paper, 60 to promote Taiwan externally as a x 240 cm each, 1995 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei unified country. Many Taiwanese Museum of Fine Arts. media, therefore, reported on the first Taiwan Pavilion at Venice in a victorious tone, using lines such as “flexible diplomacy got a rare achievement,” “look forward to speaking out for Taiwan,” “it is a successful attack,” and also describing the artists as a “national delegation” or “representative of Taiwan.” In this vein, the first Taiwan Pavilion at Venice was a symbol of nationalism and associated particularly with the political progress of Taiwanization in the 1990s.3

With exhibition titles such as View of the Taiwan Pavilion, Palazzo delle Prigioni, 1997 ARTTAIWAN (1995), Taiwan Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts. Taiwan: Facing Faces (1997), and Close to Open: Taiwan Artists Exposed (1999), it is clear there was the intention to highlight the word “Taiwan” in order to strengthen the acknowledgement of Taiwan. Whether in the curatorial statements or the poster design, the effort of promoting Taiwan was obvious; for example, the curatorial statement for ARTTAIWAN, entitled “Rising from the Sea—Contemporary Taiwanese Art” emphasized Taiwan’s geographical location as“on the eastern fringe of the Paciﬁc Ocean and the western reaches of the Asian continent.”4 Following this statement was a brief history beginning from the economic perspective of one of Asia’s phenomenal Four Little Dragons.5 This idea of promoting Taiwan also can be seen on the cover of the catalogue in its use of an old map—possibly made during the period when the Dutch occupied Taiwan (1624–62)—as a base to present an image of an island in the sea and the artists’ names listed on the top of a compass as a metaphor for the navigation of Taiwan. The idea of viewing Taiwan as a country representing a sea culture6 introduced a new perspective toward Taiwan that was adapted later by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to distinguish Taiwan from China in its history and culture.

In a previous essay of mine, “Who is Constructing the Image of Taiwan? The Strategy of the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennial (1995/1997/1999),”7 I analyzed artworks presented in the Taiwan Pavilion that were selected by juries or curators,8 and I indicated that a sense of “Taiwaneseness,” especially in reference to its hybrid culture caused by a multi-colonization experience, could be observed in them. I further argued that these exhibitions “tried to take fragment pieces of presence on site to prove an overall absent Taiwan art.”9 The statement made by juror Francoise Chatel in 1995, “Five artists, ﬁve approaches, ﬁve trends, but a shared testimony: that of the creativity and the involvement of Taiwan’s contemporary artists with their society and with the world of art”10 supports my argument. Juror

40 Vol. 12 No. 5 Wu Tien-chang, Wounded Funeral I–IV, 1994, mixed media, 192 x 130 cm each, 1997 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts.

Wang Jun-jieh, Neon Urlaub—Expo Version, 1997, installation, 1997 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts.

Chen Chieh-jen, installation view at Taiwan Pavilion, 1999, laser printed photographs, 1999 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts.

Huang Hai-Ming explained in 1997 that“the works on exhibit in the Taiwan Pavilion manifest several cultural phenomena in contemporary Taiwan as a virtual image connecting art of political and social criticism and a returning to inner concerns and Eastern traditions.”11 This also can be seen in the 1999 curatorial statement in which the curator J. J. Shih described the three artists he selected as “three segments of a mirrored image of Taiwan.”12

Vol. 12 No. 5 41 Hun Tung-lu, installation view at Taiwan Pavilion, 1999, Duratran prints, 1999 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts.

Hwang Buh-ching, Feast in the Wild, 1999, installation, dimensions variable, 1999 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts.

According to the above, the Taiwan Pavilion used artworks to illustrate the characteristics of Taiwanese culture and to further demonstrate what Taiwan is. The Taiwan Pavilion, therefore, shouldered a double task: on the one hand to function as an external showcase of Taiwan through artworks, as well as to introduce Taiwanese artists to the international stage both in terms of politics and economics. On the other hand, internally it was meant to contribute to recalling the consciousness of Taiwan and to construct the imagined community of the “New Taiwanese.” In short, the Taiwan Pavilion in its initial stage as a national pavilion at Venice could be viewed as the effort, as well as the result, of Taiwanization in the1990s.

The Taiwan Pavilion as Ambiguity (2001 to Now) Hong Kong was handed over to China in 1997, and Macau in 1999; therefore, only Taiwan remains out of China’s control. Under China’s ideology of “One China,” the issue of Taiwan became increasingly serious. Before the 2000 Taiwanese presidential election, China’s military deployed missiles aimed at Taiwan, but this gesture of force did not work. The DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian won the presidential election, and this marked a signiﬁcant political turning point in Taiwan. Between 2000 and 2008, the DPP government held its ground against China by introducing the policies of “Four No and One Without,” “One Country on Each Side,”13 and

42 Vol. 12 No. 5 Chang Chien-chi, The Chain (detail), 1998, silver gelatin print, each print 157.5 x 106 cm, 2001 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts.

Michael Lin, Palazzo delle Prigioni, 6.10–11.4, 2001, 2001, Pentalite, wall painting, 1345 x 735 x 40 cm, 2001 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts.

“Confrontation Diplomacy” (or Guerrilla-Warfare Diplomacy). As a result of political confrontation across two sides of the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan suffered its hardest international exclusion ever. Under this circumstance, the Taiwan Pavilion at Venice was forced to relinquish its national pavilion status after 2001, but this was merely one of several cases of their exclusion.14

Daniel Lee, 108 Windows, If the Taiwan Pavilion was definitely 2003, video installation, 2003 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of a national pavilion between 1995 Taipei Museum of Fine Arts. and 1999, the situation after that should be understood, as I suggested earlier, as the “Taiwan Pavilion,” identified ironically within double quotes. The Taiwan Pavilion shifted its attention from promoting Taiwan Foreground: Shu Lea Cheang, Garlic=Rich Air, 2003, via the idea of “Taiwaneseness” installation. Background: Yuan Goang-ming, City Disqualified– to displaying its uncertain Ximen District at Night and City Disqualified–Ximen international status. For example, District in Daytime, 2002, Limbo Zone at the 2003 Venice digital photographs, 240 x 300 cm each, 2003 Venice Biennale. Biennale explored the Taiwanese Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts. state of flux as a reflection of the frantic transformation taking

Vol. 12 No. 5 43 15 place through the world. The title The Spectre of Freedom for Taiwan’s Opposite page: Huang Shih-chieh, EVX–07, 2007, 2005 Venice exhibition came from the sentence saying “my liberty is only installation, 2007 Venice 16 Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei a phantom ” and the show responded to the perilous cross-strait tensions Museum of Fine Arts. at that time and the Anti-Secession Law17 made by China. Curator Chia- Chi Jason Wang stated that “The Taiwanese facing the dangers of coercion from China ﬁnd it hard not to feel the gloomy realization that Taiwan is‘so far from God, and so close to China’.”18 At the 2007 Venice Biennale, Atopia revealed the fact of the vague status of Taiwan. Curator Lin Hong-john stated that, “Taiwan’s status on the international stage is consistently expressed in other terms. Consider the countless appellations under which Taiwan has appeared over the past twenty years: Taiwan (ROC), China (Taiwan), China (Taipei), China/ Taiwan, China/Taipei, Taipei, Chinese Taipei . . .” He refers to Taiwan as a “nation without nationality,” “a place at risk of losing its proper name,” or “in-the-name-of-others.”19

Lin Hsin-I, De-strike, 2005, installation, 2005 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts.

In 2008, Taiwan’s political climate Viva, Viva, 2007, installation and performance, 2007 Venice changed again. The Kuomintang Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts. (KMT) won the presidential election and took back power after eight years under DPP rule. Contrary to DPP’s core value of “independence,” the KMT held a

brief for “uniﬁcation.” The KMT Kuo I-chen, Invade the Prigioni, 2005, video installation, 2005 government set up policies, such as Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts. “Flexible Diplomacy,” “Diplomatic Truce,” and idea of “de facto Reuniﬁcation” toward China to improve the relationship between Taiwan and China. In the same year, China’s leader Hu Jintao delivered a speech to push forward the peaceful development of the Taiwan Strait. Meanwhile, the economic relationship between Taiwan and China has been increasingly closer. In this context, the long-term tension between Taiwan and China has improved.

44 Vol. 12 No. 5 Vol. 12 No. 5 45 The Taiwan Pavilion, as a Hsieh Yun-chun, What is to Be Done, 1999–, installation, 2009 seismometer, quickly responded Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts. to this radical political change. The show Foreign Affairs20 in 2009 organized by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum presented four artists’ works that relate to cross-regional issues within global, political, economic, and social contexts. This time, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum not only played the role of commissioner but also curated the show. This process was also greatly criticized for operating without transparency, a situation similar to the debate over the 2013 Hong Kong Pavilion. Scholar Lin Chi-Ming accused this show of generating a kind of friendly relationship with China and, he argued,“look(ing) at the 2009 Taiwan Pavilion, political considerations were greater than artistic ones.”21 Here I would add that political considerations have a double reference: the politics of cross-strait circumstances and the politics of art institutions. Moreover, I view this show as a reﬂection of Taiwan’s uncertain status, similar in a way to the exhibitions at the Taiwan Pavilion between 2003 and 2007.

The essay “Taiwan and the Venice Biennale 1995-2009,” written by Jo-Anne Cheng-ta Yu, Ventriloquists: Introduction, 2008, video Birnie Danzker, appropriated a political terminology, “constructive installation, 2009 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei ambiguities,” to articulate the issue of the Taiwan Pavilion, which she Museum of Fine Arts. described “as the deliberate use of ambiguous language as a means to advance a political purpose or to disguise an inability to resolve a contentious issue.” She argued that, “Constructive ambiguities offered the curators of the Taiwan Pavilion an effective and sophisticated means to advance Taiwan’s political purpose while largely sidestepping contentious

46 Vol. 12 No. 5 issues.”22 In this vein, the function of ambiguity can be carefully employed to respond to political reality as expressed in William Empson’s idea: “ . . . it [ambiguity] must in each case arise from, and be justiﬁed by, the peculiar requirements of the situation.23 The Taiwan Pavilion, in its ambiguity, therefore perfectly offers a space for people who need and would like to interpret Taiwan.

Left: Liu Kuo-chang, Sound Bar, 2011, installation, 2011 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts. Right: Yu-hsien Su, Sound of Nothing, 2011, video installation, 2011 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts.

However, the ambiguity of the Taiwan Pavilion also raises a paradox: externally Taiwan is not recognized by the international community—the Taiwan Pavilion is not a national pavilion in the Venice Biennale, but, internally, the Taiwan Pavilion is continuously seen as a national pavilion based on the collective consciousness of Taiwan as an independent country. I argue that this paradox is the main reason that caused the 2013 Taiwan Pavilion controversy explained in the following section.

Chia-wei Hsu, Marshal Tie Jia, 2013, installation, 2013 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts.

This is“Not” a Taiwan Pavilion (2013) In June 2012, the commissioner Taipei Fine Arts Museum called for curatorial proposals for the 2013 Taiwan Pavilion. The content of the call emphasized that as the Taiwan Pavilion has a seventeen-year history of attendance at the Venice Biennale, curators who apply should provide a new perspectives in a rethinking and rebranding of the Taiwan Pavilion. At the end of November, the proposal submitted by curator Esther Lu was selected to represent the 2013 Taiwan Pavilion. In the press announcement, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum explained that this proposal would present three projects, one each by Chia-Wei Hsu (Taiwan), Bernd Behr (Taiwan/ Germany), and Kateina Šedá (Czech Republic)24 and claimed “it is a

Vol. 12 No. 5 47 current international trend to break the rule that national pavilions should only be presented by local artists,” citing the German and Poland Pavilions as a reference. In an interview with other art media, juror Manray Hsu stated that “breaking away from the position of nation is a current international trend” and “many biennials in the world have abandoned the structure of national pavilion.”25 The announcement triggered various debates among local artists, curators, and critics.26

In the short essay entitled “Kidnapped by Imaginary International Trend,”27 I responded to the statement in the press announcement. I raised questions such as: What is the international trend? Whose trend is it? In what way is it a trend? If it is true that there is this speciﬁc international trend in the art world, why does the Taiwan Pavilion need to follow? Is it a necessity? I also concluded with three points about this controversy: ﬁrst, foreign artists, as strangers, break down the ideology of nationalism and further question the representation of a de facto or imagined pavilion. Second, the term “Taiwan” here does not refer to Taiwan as Taiwanese, or more precisely the idea of “New Taiwanese,” but, rather, refers to the geographical location of Taiwan, which can be the inspiration for an artists’ creation; as curator Esther Lu said, “Taiwan could be a matrix to output.”28 Furthermore, her proposal revealed an assumption that had existed for a long time; that the Taiwan Pavilion is, in fact, not a national pavilion.

Bernd Behr, Chronotopia, 2013, ﬁlm and audio installation, 2013 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts.

A text by scholar Shu-Mei Shih that I read later may provide a better angle for understanding why Taiwanese artists were frustrated by this proposal. Although her essay is about how a Taiwanese mainstream TV travel program in the 1990s, Searching for the Strange on the Mainland, represented the image of China, it is still an important reference in understanding the relationship between Taiwan and China. She states:

Taiwan’s political and national identity acquired unprecedented particularity articulated against China in Taiwan’s social imaginary at the beginning of the twenty- ﬁrst century after a decade of governance by the DPP, but this particularity as a discourse constructed within Taiwan runs into immediate difﬁculty in the international context.29

48 Vol. 12 No. 5 Therefore, in the case of the 2013 Taiwan Pavilion controversy, I suggest that as the result of encountering incoherence inside and outside of Taiwan, an identity crisis was produced. Therefore, nationalism was recalled to counter this crisis by reconﬁrming the legitimacy of Taiwan as“New Taiwanese.”

The 2013 Taiwan Pavilion, having opened in June, assumes the title of This Is Not a Taiwan Pavilion to present its three projects. In the ﬁrst paragraph of the curatorial statement, Esther Lu illustrates the ambiguous status of Taiwan associated with the above discussion.

That the collective subconsciousness of the Taiwanese people maintains a negotiable identity reflects both the political sensitivity of Taiwan’s international situation and the historical background of this west Pacific island. The officially/unofficial survival strategy of Taiwan is to constantly appropriate its subjectivity in international relations.30

Katerina Šedá + BATEŽO She further poses a question: What can MIKILU, This is not a Czech Pavilion, 2013, public action, we employ to understand one another 2013 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts. when our social identities and histories are often invented, ﬁctionalized, and appropriated?31Her main idea concerns the dialectic process of two paradoxes— “stranger” and“us”32—that could explain the necessity of inviting foreign artists to represent the Taiwan Pavilion.

Inspired by the well-known painting This is Not a Pipe (1929), by René Magritte, This Is Not a Taiwan Pavilion also plays with this game by taking negation as a strategy. In my view, on the one hand, the title tries to respond to the previous controversy of a foreigner representing the Taiwan Pavilion while, on the other hand, it continues to perform the ambiguous status of the Taiwan Pavilion through a double negative: foreign artists represent Taiwan, and the Taiwan Pavilion is not a national pavilion. I now suggest that this title could be understood as This Is (Not) a Taiwan Pavilion, positioning “not” within a bracket in order to produce an ambiguous space. In addition, the use of a negative term “not” in this title increases a sense of ambiguity as well. As Shu-Mei Shih’s observed: “ambiguity surrounds Taiwan’s economic, cultural, and political relations with China to the extent that the notion of ‘Taiwan Identity’ as such must be ﬂexible” and ﬂexibility for Taiwan is a means of maintaining the limited degree of stability for economic, cultural, and political survival. Flexibility here is not so much a choice but a necessity.”33 If I take this statement as the reference for the Taiwan Pavilion, the Taiwan Pavilion may be summed up in one phrase: ambiguity that continuously performs until now. The ambiguity of Taiwan provided a perfect background to contextualize the 2013 Taiwan Pavilion, while the 2013 Taiwan Pavilion also revealed this confusing situation. Therefore, although the 2013 Taiwan Pavilion claims This is Not a Taiwan Pavilion, it actually acts like This is a Taiwan Pavilion.

Vol. 12 No. 5 49 The Taiwan Pavilion’s status has been changing since its first participation Katerina Šedá + BATEŽO MIKILU, This is not a Czech in 1995; however, the performance of Taiwan, or more specifically the Pavilion, 2013, installation, 2013 Venice Biennale. Courtesy reflection of Taiwan’s political situation, is always the centre of attention in of Taipei Museum of Fine Arts. the Taiwan Pavilion at Venice. When the designation of Taiwan Pavilion is located inside the double quotes, ambiguity as a feature provides a space for imagination that also helps the survival of the Taiwan Pavilion at Venice.

50 Vol. 12 No. 5 Hong Kong (China) Pavilion: In 1997, Hong Kong experienced radical political change, and its status shifted from British colony to one of the Special Administrative Regions of the People’s Republic of China—from city-state to part of China within the “One country, two systems” principle. Many debates during that time tended to view that a return to the“motherland” should be understood as a transition from British colonialism to“ancestorland” colonialism or a process of“recolonization.”34 The same year, Hong Kong suffered from an economic downturn caused by the Asian ﬁnancial crisis. A few years later, in 2003, the outbreak of SARS also had a great impact on the economy. When the global economic crisis took place in 2008, Hong Kong was one of the hardest-hit areas. Within these circumstances, Hong Kong’s economy has greatly relied on China for support.

However, this kind of intimate political relationship, as well as Hong Kong’s over-reliant economy, already produced various problems that have affected the everyday life of its people, such as the reduction of freedom of speech and demonstrations, the problems caused by an excess of Chinese tourists visiting Hong Kong, financial and real estate purchases, and even criticism about national education. Whether in the political or economic field, a complex anxiety toward China is increasing. This is also reflected in the search for Hong Kong identity in its culture in order to make clear its distinction from China. Based on the political-economic-cultural context of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Pavilion at the Venice Biennale might serve as a mirror to reflect this increasing complexity; that is, China as an intimate enemy. In this sense, the Hong Kong China Pavilion could be considered, as I suggested earlier, the Hong Kong (China) Pavilion in an effort to separate itself from China and make Hong Kong distinctive.

Hong Kong’s first participation in the Venice Biennale was in 2001 and was organized by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council as a strategy to develop the cultural scene in Hong Kong and to raise the visibility of Hong Kong art on the international stage. This idea was proven in the opening speech, in which HKADC expressed the idea that “Hong Kong as the‘Venice of the East’ would not lose its status of international metropolis after 1997,” rather, “Hong Kong is developing into a cultural metropolis in Asia in addition to being a financial one.”35 This statement, as a political promise, emphasized that Hong Kong, China would be in a better situation than it was during the British colonial period, not only in terms of finances but also as a cultural metropolis, replacing Hong Kong’s previous image of a “cultural desert.” However, the question that is revealed is whose culture is represented now and in what way? In analyzing the Hong Kong Pavilion from 2001 to 2013, one can divide it into two stages. In the first stage, 2001 –07, it presented group exhibitions as representations of “HongKongness,” and the second stage, 2009–now, appropriates a strategy of solo shows to promote one single artist as an art star.

Performing HongKongness through Group Shows (2001–07) The ﬁrst show, Magic at Street Level, in 2001, curated by Johnson Tsong- zung Chang, presented four artists who are insightful observers of the city.

Vol. 12 No. 5 51 Here, artists’ expressed a sense of Entrance to Hong Kong Pavilion, 2001 Venice Biennale. “the experience of the private,” as Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Johnson put it, and revealed features of locality that are distinct to Hong Kong. Through artists’ eyes, images of the skyline, skyscrapers, highways, and street scenes appeared as a diverse assemblage of metropolitan Hong Kong. Navigating the Dot, presented by Para/Site Collective in 2003, interpreted Hong Kong as a small dot on the world map and, with a sense of the geopolitical, as the curator Tsang Tak-ping’s statement “compared to China, Hong Kong is nothing.”36 They installed huge cement buckets for audiences to visit, to rest upon, and to experience the particularities of Hong Kong. The image of a cement bucket, something that is commonly seen in the public space of social housing in Hong Kong, thus recalled a sense of collective memory.

Ho Siu-kee, Golden Proportion, 2000, performance and video installation, 2001 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

Leung Chi-wo (in collaboration with Sara Chi Hang Wong), City Cookie, 2001, installation, 2001 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

52 Vol. 12 No. 5 Left: Entrance to Hong Kong Pavilion, 2003 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Right: Navigating the Dot, installation view, 2003 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

The enactment of HongKongness was continuously used as a strategy and was especially evident in the 2005 Hong Kong Pavilion. The title, Investigation of a Journey to the West by Marco + Polo, referred to two events: a famous ancient Chinese mythological tale, “Journey to the West,” and Marco Polo’s visit to China in the thirteenth century. Thus, the two artists were presenting two different directions of cultural exchange. Kurt Chen surveyed the landscape of Venice and presented it as an art installation. Anothermountainman represented a Hong Kong-style teahouse by using the stylized and ubiquitous “red-white-blue” plastic fabric—a low-cost wrapping material—that reﬂects the transitory and unsettled nature of Hong Kong. This work also served as a place for face-to-face communication among people, something that is becoming a lost art in modern society.

Left: View of the Hong Kong Pavilion, 2005 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Right: Chan Yuk-keung, hollow, inverted, suspended, 2005, installation. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

anothermountainman (Chan Yuk-keung), redwhiteblue: tea and chat, 2005, installation. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

The year of 2007 marked the tenth anniversary of the Hong Kong’s handover to China. At the end of 2006, the demolishing of Star Ferry Clock Tower caused a serious protest and generated new aspirations for the protection of cultural heritage sites, in particular British legacies that

Vol. 12 No. 5 53 remain in Hong Kong. Since then, many actions have been taken, especially Top: Entrance to Hong Kong Pavilion, 2007 Venice Biennale. by the younger generation, against government decisions in politics. In this Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. respect, the collective consciousness of Hong Kong is stronger than ever. Left: Hiram To, I Love You More Than My Own Death, 2007, installation, 2007 Venice The 2007 show in the Hong Kong Pavilion appropriated the title STAR Biennale. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Development FAIRY, but this show did not relate much to the Star Ferry protest. Council. Right: Map Ofﬁce (Lauren Instead, it was “interested in how Hong Kong city, both literally and as a Gutierrez and Valérie 37 Portefaix), Concrete Jungle/ ‘representative’ city space, presents itself globally.” The curator, Norman The Parrot’s Tale, 2007, Ford, an American based in Hong Kong, raised a question: How is the way installation, 2007 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of the “cities, city-state, semi-states, and nations show themselves to the world Hong Kong Arts Development Council. (and to Venice) . . . relevant beyond our Special Administrative Region’s borders?38” He also stated that “STAR FAIRY sees this ‘representational’ problem as the primary concern for Hong Kong’s participation in Venice,”39 as well as a starting point for artists. In the press release, this show was praised for “the international composition of the exhibition”40 as one of three projects done by French-Hong Kong based artist group Map Ofﬁce. In this vein, nationality is not an issue, but rather a feature of Hong Kong because of the history of “West meets East.” Inviting foreign artists as a strategy toward understanding the problematic status of the Hong Kong Pavilion was achieved in this show.

54 Vol. 12 No. 5 Promoting one Artist as an Art Star (2009–now) The second stage of the Hong Kong Pavilion in its representing a single artist started in 2009, and this approach has continued ever since. The exhibitions are as follows: Pak Sheung Chuen’s Making (Perfect) World: Harbour, Hong Kong, Alienated Cities and Dreams (2009), Frog King’s frogtopia—hongkornucopia (2011), and Lee Kit’s 'You (you)' (2013). The press release for the 2013 Hong Kong Pavilion explained that the model they employed is “successfully used in many other participating countries, where an esteemed local arts body or institution is given the responsibility to select the curator and the artist to represent Hong Kong at the Biennale.”41 The only difference in the case of 2013 Hong Kong Pavilion is that HKADC as the commissioner did not announce an open call for proposals, but, rather, directly appointed M+ to take the responsibility of preparing an exhibition for the pavilion. As mentioned earlier, this caused serious criticism that related mainly to a lack of transparency in the process, and a series of debates42 arose in response to it. Another concern was towards M+. In the fall of 2012, M+ accepted a huge donation of artwork from Swiss collector Uli Sigg that included 1,463 contemporary Chinese artworks, and M+ paid 1.77 hundred million HK dollars to Sigg for another forty-seven works. At that time, some Hong Kong artists, curators, and critics questioned what direction M+ would take and raised the question as to whether M+ might tend to work more with contemporary mainland Chinese art rather than Hong Kong art.

Entrance to Hong Kong Pavilion, 2013 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

For me, the question of why the Hong Kong Pavilion shifted its model from presenting a group show to one of promoting an individual artist is more interesting. I roughly conclude as follows: First, the Hong Kong Pavilion already focused four times on presenting Hong Kong itself from different angles—the cityscape, everyday life, collective memory, and the mixing of East-West cultures. The solo show can be seen as a promise of presenting art rather than referring to politics, and it is something that has been employed for a long time by many national pavilions at Venice. This approach has been requested for a long time by those within the Taiwan art scene to apply to the Taiwan Pavilion, but never has been realized.

Vol. 12 No. 5 55 Second, the characteristics of artworks Top: Foreground: Pak Sheung Chuen, The Horizon Placed presented in the Hong Kong Pavilion have at Home (N22° 17’400” Version), 2009, 45 bottles been summarized by Clara Cheung in three with seawater collected from Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong. points: the self-reflection of the artists (the Background: Pak Sheung Chuen, Half Soul, Half Body, inside world of artist), the attempt to reveal 2009, installation, 2009 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of the the collective memory of Hong Kong people, Hong Kong Arts Development Council. and the lack of a direct relationship to Middle: Pak Sheung Chuen, important current social or political issues in One Eye, Half of the Moon, 2009, installation, 2009 Venice Hong Kong.43 The final characteristic can be Biennale. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Development understood further by reading the essay “Two Council. 44 Bottom: Pak Sheung Sides of Hong Kong Artists,” by Jeff Leung. Chuen, A Travel Without Visual Experience, 2008, He indicates two trends characteristic of the photographic installation, 2009 changing attitudes of Hong Kong artists: as Venice Biennale. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts a critical minority of social change and as Development Council. the“exception” to contemporary Chinese art. The former is Hong Kong artists’ socially engaged art practices or cultural actions that function to fight for citizen rights, especially for freedom of speech and social justice. This type of work has not been presented in the Hong Kong Pavilion.

Frog King, Frog–Fun–Lum Piazza, 2011, site speciﬁc installation and improvised performance, 2011 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

The latter is closely associated with the Hong Kong Pavilion between 2009 and 2013. In Leung’s essay, he mentions artists who are living and working in two places such as Pak Sheung Chuen (China and Hong Kong), Frog King (America and Hong Kong), and Lee Kit (Taiwan and Hong Kong). Their work is not bound to a single place and thus is not limited in the issue of identity. The features of “placelessness” and the “nomadic” emphasized by overseas media provide Hong Kong art a new value: an exception to contemporary Chinese art. This observation brings us to understand the shifting mode of the Hong Kong Pavilion from the perspective of the art market. As the Venice Biennale is a sort of global mega-art-fair, the model of the solo show is “believed to be the one that can help Hong Kong art to emerge quickly.”45 In recent years in particular, the Hong Kong art market has been booming. In 2011, Hong Kong became the third largest auction market in the world, and this year, 2013, the newly branded Art Basel—Hong Kong opened. Also, many Western galleries have set up branches in Hong Kong as a base from which to aim at the Asian art market, especially China’s.

56 Vol. 12 No. 5 The solo show, on the one hand, is a way of presenting a single artist to attract more attention in the art market. On the other hand, the function of the curator tends to be that of an assistant, a facilitator, or a conductor who serves the selected artist, and thus there is less curatorial involvement. The Taiwan Pavilion, for example, has used the curatorial premise to address some speciﬁc issues associated with its changing political circumstances. In this sense, the Hong Kong Pavilion, by presenting solo shows after 2009, could be seen as a way to avoid the danger of political correctness. With the idea of “the personal is political,” the Hong Kong Pavilion continuously presenting solo shows exhibits HongKongness via an artist’s personal view.

Frog King, Frog’s Nest, 2011, ‘You (you)’, a meaningful and poetic title, was explained by the artist Lee installation, 2011 Venice Biennale. Courtesy of the Kit: “[T]o me, the title ‘You (you)’ is concrete yet abstract. It’s ambiguous. Hong Kong Arts Development Council. It’s almost like looking into a mirror. You see your reﬂection in the mirror.”46 The text introducing this exhibition states that “‘You (you)’ takes the universal yet non-existing entity alluded to in its title as a point of departure, gazing at the notion of absence to reﬂect on the construction of places, memories and time.”47 The ‘you’ could therefore be seen as a kind of recognition of oneself or one’s emotional and/or physical surroundings.48 This title inspires me to interpret Hong Kong’s identity as “Hong Kong, China (Hong Kong),” even “Hong Kong, China (British Hong Kong)”—a sense of gazing at one’s absence. Within the subtle, interweaving, and complicated relationship between China and Hong Kong, therefore, the Hong Kong China Pavilion actually manifests and acts as the Hong Kong (China) Pavilion at Venice.

To Be or Not To Be a National Pavilion? While neither the Taiwan nor the Hong Kong Pavilion is an ofﬁcial national pavilion at the Venice Biennale, from the analysis above it clearly shows that they actually think and act as national pavilions. Due to the hardships caused

Vol. 12 No. 5 57 58 Vol. 12 No. 5 Top to bottom: Lee Kit, ‘You by the One China Policy, the Taiwan Pavilion has encountered difﬁcult times, (you).’, 2013, installation, 2013 Venice Biennale. Courtesy but it has functioned also as a free platform for Taiwan to speak out. In its early of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. stages, presenting a sense of Taiwaneseness through artwork was a mission. After that, the interpretation of Taiwan’s uncertain status and unstable future was the main direction. The 2013 Taiwan Pavilion incorporates foreign artists to make Taiwan’s invisible reality visible. The Hong Kong Pavilion has different concerns, and Shu-Mei Shih, in her essay “The Geopolitics of Desire,” points out that “the option of imagining a national identity (as in Taiwan) has never been available for Hong Kong” and “the more futile the search for a unique cultural identity, however, the greater the urgency and desire.”49 Although the sense of HongKongness still can be felt in the ﬁrst four group shows of the Hong Kong Pavilion, it might not be so encouraged in the real political world, as one can see the status of Hong Kong promised as “one country, two systems” is declining. The desire to be legitimately recognized through the Taiwan Pavilion and the Hong Kong Pavilion at the Venice Biennale—in other words, the struggle of “to be or not to be a national pavilion”—aggravates an old story that is based on the idea of nationalism.

Notes 1 Originally, China planned to have the China Pavilion in 2003; however, because of SARS, the participation of China was postponed to 2005. But in 2001, the Taiwan Pavilion was forced to change the name to Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan, at the very last moment, marking a turning point in its status. All the preparations for the exhibition in 2001 were set up according to the status of a national pavilion. In 2003, the organizer of the Venice Biennale decided to set up a special section called Extra 50 to house exhibitions presented by art institutions in various countries; the Taiwan Pavilion was eased into the Extra 50. Later years, Extra 50 changed its name to ”collateral event.” 2 The term “New Taiwanese” () was coined by former President Lee Teng-hui in 1995. He stated in the speech at the 228 event memory in that year that:“[A]ll of us who grow up and live on this soil today are Taiwanese people, whether we are aborigines, descendants of aborigines or descendants of the immigrants from the mainland who came over centuries or decades ago. We have all made equal contributions to Taiwan’s future. It is possible for each one of us, the ‘new Taiwanese people,’to convert our love and affection for Taiwan into concrete actions in order to open up a grander horizon for its development.” 3 In 1994, President Lee Teng-Hui visited several countries in an effort to encourage international diplomacy. In June 1995, almost at the same time of the opening of Venice Biennale, he delivered a lecture “Taiwan’s Democratization Experience,” during his visit to his alma mater Cornell University, in the United States. 4 Yang Wen-I, “Rising from the Sea-Contemporary Taiwanese Art,” in Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale: A Retrospective 1995–2007, ed. Chen Shu-Ling (Taipei: Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2009), 136. Yang Wen-I was assistant researcher at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum at that time. 5 Four Little Dragons as a term refers to the highly developed economies of Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore. 6 1996 presidential candidate Peng Ming-min’s election manifesto was about the “Sea Culture” of Taiwan, locating Taiwan in the sea rather than at the margins of mainland China. In 1997, Schar Cheng-sheng Tu published an essay, “The Birth of a New Perception of History,” in Contemporary Monthly no. 120 (August 1997), 20–31,in which he explained his theory of concentric circles and suggested locating Taiwan as a country with a colonized history within the area of East Asia, rather than as part of China. 7 Lu Pei-Yi, “Who is Constructing the Image of Taiwan? The Strategy of the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennial (1995, 1997 and 1999),” Journal of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum no. 4 (2001), 125–51. 8 In 1995 and 1997, the selection for the Taiwan Pavilion was made through a jury-decision model, while in 1999 it started to do an open call for curatorial proposals. 9 Lu Pei-Yi, “Who is Constructing the Image of Taiwan? The Strategy of the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennial (1995, 1997 and 1999),” Journal of Taipei Fine Arts Museum, no. 4, (2001), 125–51. 10 Francoise Chatel, “Contemporary Tendencies in Taiwan,” in Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale: A Retrospective 1995–2007, 126. 11 Huang Hai-Ming, Contemporary Art of Taiwan: Virtual Connections, Criticism, Returnings" in Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale: A Retrospective 1995–2007, 163. 12 J. J. Shih,“Close to Open: Taiwanese Artists Exposed,” in Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale: A Retrospective 1995–2007, 199. 13 This also translated as “one side, one country.” 14 Another case is that in 2002, at the Sao Paulo Biennial, it was suggested that the Taiwan Pavilion should be under the name of Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taiwan; however, the pressure from China forced the disappearance of the word Taiwan. Taiwanese artist Chang Chien-Chi protested against this unfair event, and in the end, six national pavilions donated a letter from their national name to be combined as the word of “Taiwan.” Because of these donations, the “absent” Taiwan could then be represented.

Vol. 12 No. 5 59 15 Shu-min Lin,“Limbo Zone,” in Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale: A Retrospective 1995–2007, 234. 16 Chia-Chi Jason Wang, “The Spectre of Freedom,” in Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale: A Retrospective 1995–2007, 256. 17 The Anti-Secession Law () was made by the Chinese government in 2005. The law is composed of ten articles towards promoting cross-strait relations. The translation in Chinese is as “Anti-Separation Law.” 18 Chia-Chi Wang,“The Spectre of Freedom,” in Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale: A Retrospective 1995–2007, 258. 19 Hong-john Lin, “Atopia,” in Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale: A Retrospective 1995–2007, 282. 20 Another criticism was about the question of the domination of Taipei Fine Arts Museum, which directly announced that this show was made by them rather than the result of a fairer mode of an open call that was the process for many years. The method of the Taiwan Pavilion changed from directly selecting artists (1995 and 1997) to recommending a curator (2001), an open call for curatorial proposals (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007), and direct curation by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2009). A two- stage process was taken in 2011: The first stage was to invite selected curators to propose projects, and the second stage was to decide upon one of the curatorial projects. Amy Chang’s “The Heard and the Unheard—Soundscape Taiwan,” presented at the 2011 Taiwan Pavilion, explored Taiwan’s social soundscape with two sound art pieces and a sound library. 21 Lin Chi-Ming, “Reading the ‘Taiwan Pavilion’ at the Venice Biennial,” in Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale: A Retrospective 1995 –2007, 83. 22 ‘Jo-Anne BirnieDanzker, “Constructive Ambiguities: Taiwan and the Venice Biennale 1995–2009,” in Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale: A Retrospective 1995 –2007, 103. 23 William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity (New York: New Directions, 1966), 235. 24 Bernd Behr did his residence program in the Taipei Artist Village in the summer of 2012, while Katerina Šedá didn’t have any relationship with Taiwan before this proposal. 25 Manray Hsu,“Breaking Away From Nations is a Current International Trend,” interview, Art Emperor, http://artemperor.tw/focus/75/. 26 I organized a special issue for ARTCO, in January 2013. Lu Pei-Yi and Kao Tzu-Chin, (eds.), “Belated Bomb: Review of the Controversy of 2013 Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale,” special issue of ARTCO (January 2013), 64–99. 27 Pei-Yi Lu, “Kidnapped by Imaginary International Trend,” ARTCO (January 2013), 82–83. 28 Esther Lu, “An Open Letter towards Art People,” ARTCO (January 2013), 79. 29 Shu-Mei Shih, “The Incredible Heaviness of Ambiguity,” in Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations across the Pacific (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 119. 30 Esther Lu, “This is not a Taiwan Pavilion: A Curatorial Concept,” 2013 Taiwan Pavilion Web site, June 21, 2013, http://www.venicebiennaletaiwan.org/index.php/en/k2-tags/text/curatorial-concept/. 31 Ibid. 32 “The Venice Questionaire #10: Esther Lu,” ArtReview.com, May 2013, http://artsy.net/post/artreview- the-venice-questionnaire-number-10-esther-lu/. 33 Shu-Mei Shih, “The Incredible Heaviness of Ambiguity,” in Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations across the Pacific, 123. 34 Shu-Mei Shih, “The Geopolitics of Desire,” in Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations across the Pacific, 107. 35 The Speech for the Grand Opening of China-Hong Kong Exhibition Site at the 49th Venice Biennial by Dr. Patrick Ho, Chairman of Hong Kong Arts Development Council, June 17, 2013, http://www.hkadc. org.hk/en/content/web.do?id=ff80818123dbba560123e14b444d0189/. 36 Au Desiree, ed., “Asian contemporary artists may be gaining growing international recognition, but are Hongkongers among them? Mark Irving examines their impact at the Venice Biennale,” South China Morning Post, June 22, 2003. 37 Norman Ford, “On the Road to Venice, or Who Speaks for Whom When a Parrot Speaks for You?” 2007 Hong Kong Pavilion Web site, http://www.venicebiennale.hk/vb2007/exhibition.php/. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Press release, “Star Ferry in Venice,” June 11, 2007, Hong Kong Pavilion Web site, http://www. venicebiennale.hk/vb2007/latest_press_20070611.php/. 41 Press release: Lee Kit to Represent Hong Kong at the 2013 Venice Biennale, June 22, 2012, http:// www.hkadc.org.hk/en/content/web.do?page=pressrelease20120622/. 42 There is a Facebook community titled We Want the Truth. See https://www.facebook.com/ WeWantTheTruth.HK.VeniceBiennale2013?fref=ts/. 43 The online conversation with Clara Cheung was conducted between May 9 and July 6, 2013. This comment was written by her on May 13, 2013. 44 Jeff Leung, “Two Sides of Hong Kong Artists,” ARTCO no. 247 (April 2013), 93–95. 45 Ibid. 46 Interview video, 2013 Hong Kong Pavilion, https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=uxBfYLcw3Hs/. 47 2013 Hong Kong Pavilion Web site, http://www.venicebiennale.hk/2013/exhibition/you-you-lee-kit/. 48 Online Web chat with co-curator Yu Ma on June 25, 2013. 49 Shu-Mei Shih, “The Geopolitics of Desire,” in Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations across the Pacific, 107.

60 Vol. 12 No. 5