Soft Power─The Intangible Indicator

maintrend

• 7 July～18 August, 2012
• Reception: July, 2012(Sat.)  17:00-18:30
• Venue: Main Trend Gallery / No. 209-1, Chen Der Rd. Sec. 3, Taipei 10365 (Near By MRT Yuan-Shan Station Exit No.1)
• Curator: Becky CHO
• Artists: Yu-Cheng CHOU, Sung-Chin CHEN, Jam WU, Chin-Chung DIN
  

By Becky Cho        June 2012

When I returned to Taiwan from a long summer break in California in 2011; I had an unusual encounter. The chance of having the time and opportunity for a curatorial project that I had wanted to do for many years, with the invitation of four outstanding artists in Taiwan whose works, in my opinion, capture a niche segment of the arts market. Their works are not only a contemporary statement of Taiwanese society, but also artistic expressions that speak of and for our community and its governing elites; hence, giving significance to its title, “Soft Power – The Intangible Indicator”. Today with more and more artists building diplomacy through their art within the international arena; these artist’s work contribute to the concept of globalization through the manipulation of popular culture and heritage aesthetics.

On the other hand, it is also ironic to find in the past two decades that globalization also creates the urge for an emphasis on localization. The arts play a critical role of defining our humanity, whether regarded as soft power or not. I have chosen these artists whose works contain “soft power” both in terms of form and metaphor. They are, as their subtitle suggests, intangible but powerful. They reach out to our everyday experience through texture, light, fabric, and pattern. “Soft” as they might seem in form and representation; these artistic statements and subjects, as presented in a gallery setting, become the desired subject of display; challenging the eyes of collectors with an appetite for Taiwanese contemporary arts.

The ambition of “Soft Power” is indeed to present these works to collectors as an indicator that is intangible but real. They are the indicator for economic incentive and force, which is not difficult to trace in terms of how they were developed. The common path of these artists can be identified in a few ways:

1.        They are all within the same age group, sharing similar higher level arts education background in Taiwan.
2.        They have a clear strategy on growing their career path, picking up some major awards of professional recognition, while building a social/business network.
3.        They all have international artist residency experience and have worked in an international cultural setting as part of their development.
4.        All material they use or present is intangible in some ways, soft in its form and substance as part of their development process.

From the year 2001 – 2008, my professional engagement as an arts foundation director role in both the public and private sector have given me numerous opportunities to understand how artists manipulate their “soft power”, not always necessarily from a political perspective, but that influence can be quite powerful, especially from an economic standpoint. There is no simple rule to decode the index of arts market. The fun and challenge rests in those who have the patience to learn the intangible value behind it.

Public Relations
Ginnie Hung
+886-2-2587-3412#12
ginnie@maintrendgallery.com.tw