NIU JUN QIANG
Niu Jun Qiang was born in 1983. He graduated with MFA in New Media Art from Taipei National University of the Arts. His artworks mainly focus on the video, film and mixed media installations. He is also the assistance professor of Communication of design in Shih Chien University, and the director with Association of the Visual Arts in Taiwan (AVAT). During the creative process, Niu has investigated the incredible relations between materiality and spirituality which in our life consciousness from the individuals to groups. He has worked with different sorts of participants to narrate their past experiences for the creation of a more united, joint experience. Niu Jun Qiang’s artworks have been featured in the short film competition at the Rotterdam International Film Festival (the Netherlands), Osmosis Audiovisual Media festival (U.K.), Pixilerations Tech Art Exhibition (U.S.A.), the Aguilar International Short Film Festival (Spain), Tours Asian Film Festival (France), ARTchSO Video Festival in Rennes (France), It Takes Four Sorts: Cross-Strait Four-region Artistic Exchange Project (Taiwan, Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau), Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, Taipei Arts Awards in Taipei…etc. His works also had been showed in Paris, Berlin, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, Mexico, Seoul, Beijing, Shenzhen. He won the 53rd Worldfest-Houston, Remi Award, Experimental Film & Video Art Film, 2020.
Awards London IFF 2021, Best Foreign Language Documentary, 2021 London IFF 2021, Best Director of a Foreign Language Documentary, 2021 The 7th Around International Film Festival, Best Experimental Film Award, 2021 The 53th Worldfest-Houston, Remi Award, Experimental Film & Video Art Film, 2020 The 42th Golden Harvest Award, the Suspend Experimental Film, 2020 The 17th Taishin Arts Award, 2019 The 35th Golden Harvest Award, the Suspend Experimental Film, 2013 Taipei Arts Award Competition, 2009 Taipei Arts Award Competition, 2008
Art Residency Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France, 2017 The 18th Art center, Los Angeles, USA, 2011
Published Item "When we reach the end, we’ll assemble in a cave", Publisher: Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2012
Solo Exhibition 2018 Niu Jun Qiang’s Solo Exhibition, TKG+ Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 2018 Twins, Cipa Gallery, Beijing, China, 2016 2015 Niu Jun Qiang’s Solo Exhibition, Michael Ku Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 2015 2014 Niu Jun Qiang’s Solo Exhibition, 182 Art Space, Tainan, Taiwan, 2014 10 Minutes Left-2012, National Taiwan Museum of fine Arts, Taichung,Taiwan, 2012 cover, Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, 2012 Even they never met, Chi-Wen Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 2012 When I'm Getting older with you, Nan-Hai Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 2009
Group Exhibition 2020 Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition-Anima, C-Lab, Taipei, Taiwan To Martian Anthropologists, New Taipei City Arts Center, Taipei, Taiwan Island Bar—Port Under The Sea, CAVE, Yokohama, Japan 53th Worldfest-Houston Film Festival, Houston, U.S.A. 7th Annual Fine Arts Film Festival, Los Angeles, U.S.A. 2019 ADAM Artist Lab, Da Dao Chen Theater, Taipei, Taiwan The Light of the word, Embassy of R.O.C. to the Holy See, Rome, Italy 2018 Data Mania—2018 OSMOSIS Russia , Media Art Centre, Russia 2017 Carnets du flaneur, Galerie Frédéric Moisan, Paris, France Osmosis Audiovisual Media festival, Backlit Gallery, Fabrica Gallery, Phoenix Leicester, Exeter Phoenix, CCA Glasgow, the U.K. EXiS Experimental Film And Video Festival, Seoul, South Korea RiverRun, Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
2016 ART Shenzhen, Guangzhou, China Asian Arts Space Network Show, A.C.C., Gwangju, Korea Interdisciplinary Art Festival Tokyo, Japan 2015 Art Taipei 2015, Taipei World Trade Center, Taipei, Taiwan Taipei Art District Festival, Liang Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan Returning Sight—The Fissures of Moving Image, TKG+ Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan A Body of Mobile Machine, Halka Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey 2014 The Other and The Distance—Cross Strait Contemporary Art Exchange, China, Taiwan 2013 Sommerreise, GlogauAIR, Berlin, Germany True Illusion, Illusion Truth—Contemporary Art Beyond Ordinary Experience, Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taipei, Taiwan Cutlog NY Art Fair-Urban Illusions, New York, U.S.A. 2012 Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, Taipei, Taiwan It Takes Four Spots—Cross Strait Four Region Artistic Exchange Project, Taiwan, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau Ambiguous Being, Video works of artists based in the metropolis of Berlin, Taipei and Tel Aviv. Taiwan, Germany and Israel 2011 VAFA—International Video Art Festival, Orient Foundation, Macau Beyond the Frame, Chi-Wen Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan Aguilar International Short Film Festival, Aguilar, Spain Pixillations [v.8] New Media Fringe Festival, Rhode Island, USA Post-Actitud: El Arte Contemporáneo de Jóvenes Artistas de Taiwan, Ex Teresa Arte, Mexico. ARTchSO Video Festival, Rennes, France. 2010 EX!T—Experimental Media Art Festival, Taipei Contemporary Art Center, Taiwan Eattopia—Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition, Hong Gah Museum, Taipei, Taiwan Festival du Cinéma Asiatique de Tours, Tours, France. 2009 Taipei Arts Award Competition, Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taipei, Taiwan Light Position, National Taiwan Museum of fine Arts ,Taichung, Taiwan Taiwan Israel Young Artists Interchange ExhibitionⅡ,Taipei, Taiwan
2008 Taipei Arts Award Competition, Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taipei, Taiwan Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition, Hong Gah Museum, Taipei, Taiwan Asia Students and Young Artists Art Festival, Seoul, South Korea Borderline Mirrorlike—Taiwan and Israel Artists Interchange Exhibition, Taipei, Taiwan The 10th Taipei International Film Festival, Taipei, Taiwan Digital Entertainment Jam, Beijing, China 2007 OPEN SPACE, Kunsthochschule Kassel, Kassel, Germany 2006 Tiger Awards Competition for Short Film, the 35th International Film Festival Rotterdam, Holland
Collection The Borderline II, Photograph, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan, 2020 The Borderline I, Photograph, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan, 2020 Untitled VI (2018), Photograph, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan, 2020 Untitled-V Twins, Multi-media, personal collection, Taipei, Taiwan, 2020 The Inner Gate, Multi-media, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan, 2019 Untitled (2016), Photograph, Yonghe Arts and Education Foundation, Taiwan, 2018 The Sunlight is Different Here, Neon light, Yonghe Arts and Education Foundation, 2016 Untitled IV, Personal collection, Hong Kong, 2015 Foresee, Personal collection, Hong Kong, 2015 When I am getting old with you, Personal collection, New York, USA, 2014 Prove I, Artist Pension Trust (APT), Hong Kong, 2013 10 Minutes Left, Artist Pension Trust (APT), Hong Kong, 2013 Even They Never Met, Personal collection, Taipei, Taiwan, 2012
NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018 Video and audio, installation, light. Full HD1920*1080 25’00” 2018
The NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018 is a continuation of my previous exhibitions in 2014 and 2015. Deliberately not giving the exhibition a title, I return to the idea of temporality. The exhibition title does not dwell on a certain subject, but focuses on my state of being. In this 2018 exhibition, I expand my ongoing exploration of blindness since 2015 into a discourse on vision as a way of existence, by probing the similarities between the sense of empathy in art and religious experience in faith. The exhibition is divided into two parts. In the first part, I investigate how God is envisioned, as well as the forms of faith in Eastern and Western religions by posing three questions in a series of work: What is God? How does God look? How does God’s presence make one feel? The second part involves an experiment conceived by me and curator where the exhibition view is empty, with no sight of the work. A video on view shows I leading a visually impaired man Jia-Feng Hsu in the empty exhibition space, describing to Hsu the details, position, concept, and production process of each work, perceived by the viewer solely through the video. No longer a venue to display the work, the exhibition space morphs into the work itself carrying the specter of the work. The ending scene of the video shows the muted exhibition space, blurring the boundary between the virtual space on screen and the physical space in reality.
Read more: https://natniu.net/work-id/#w16
The video link: https://vimeo.com/328594840
The scenes of the exhibition: https://vimeo.com/339295921
NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018
The video stills of "NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018".
NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018
The scene of "NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018". 2018
A video on view shows the artist leading a visually impaired man Jia-Feng Hsu in the empty exhibition space, describing to Hsu the details, position, concept, and production process of each work, perceived by the viewer solely through the video.
NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018
The video stills of "NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018".
NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018
The video stills of "NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018".
NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018
The video stills of "NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018".
NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018
The video stills of "NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018".
The artist investigates how God is envisioned, as well as the forms of faith in Eastern and Western religions by posing three questions in a series of work: What is God? How does God look? How does God’s presence make one feel?
NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018
The video stills of "NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018".
NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018
The video stills of "NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018".
Niu Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018
The scenes of "NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018". 2018
NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018
The scenes of "NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018". 2018
The audiences walk through a gloomy corridor and reach the empty exhibition space.
NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018
The scene of "NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018". 2018
No longer a venue to display the work, the exhibition space morphs into the work itself carrying the specter of the work. The ending scene of the video shows the muted exhibition space, blurring the boundary between the virtual space on screen and the physical space in reality.
NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018
The scene of "NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018". 2018
Drawing parallels between blindness and bodily experience, Niu considers the viewer’s act of navigating the exhibition space the core of the exhibition, where bodily experience echoes religious ritual, further transmuted into divine (nonvisual) experience.
Reveal Full HD three-channel video, installation, 18’30”, 4-channel stereo mix 2020
"Reveal" discusses the correspondence between the images of internal consciousness and external images. Such correspondence is derived from religious experiences and exploration of collective subconsciousness. I discourse on vision as a way of existence. I consider it is not a representation of mystic experience, but more of turning off the light originally lit in a room and opening the window – for the light outside to shine through. I transform existing of things in the visual form into another form of existence. In my solo exhibition in 2018, I constructed an exhibition that never happened via documentary films and descriptive videos. As visitors were situated on scene of the empty exhibition, it felt like they were experiencing everything in the images. This “afterimage-like” experience allowed visitors to complement the feelings of non-physical dimension on their own. “Reveal” departs from Andrei Tarkovsky’s film clips ( Nostalghia, 1983) , inviting a hypnotist to narrate this work to the candle fire. Amidst the flickering light of the candle fire, what gaps will emerge between the images in the viewers’ minds and original images in the film? Reveal in the Bible suggests manifestation and presentation of an unknown divine power. This work also discusses the meaning of "light" in vision again: the light brings visibility, the essence of image is light, and the flashing of candlelight corresponds to the image of the film itself.
The video link: https://vimeo.com/494015013/25505da2bc The presenting of "Reveal" in exhibition: https://vimeo.com/494015013/25505da2bc
Reveal
Upper: The video still of "Nostalghia, 1983 ". Lower: The correspond video screenshot of "Reveal".
Reveal
The video stills of "Nostalghia, 1983 ".
Reveal
The video stills of "Nostalghia, 1983 ".
Reveal
Full HD video, 18’30”, 4-channel stereo mix 2020
Reveal
The scenes of "The 7th Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition – ANIMA".
Reveal (Three-channel version)
The video stills of "Reveal (Three- Channel version) ".
Reveal
The scene of "The 7th Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition – ANIMA".
Reveal (Three-Channel version)
This is the version ready to be exhibited in larger and higher space like museum, gallery and church.
The Sunshine Is Different Here Premium Glossy Photo, Paper(Photograph), 87*57cm 2015 Neon light (Installation), 220*550*320cm 2016
The sunshine is different here is a part of the subtitles shown in one of my image artworks. This sentence, along with the blank screen on which it
is shown, evoked all kinds of associations for me. To what does the term “sunshine” refer? Does it refer to the light emitted by the screen, or the
image per se is the very source of the light? Can we distinguish artificial light from natural one? Where does the person who said the line come
from? How does the person tell the difference between “here” and “there?” These questions strongly stimulate the viewers’ profound reflection on
the materiality of light and images as well as the meanings of identity and region.
Read more: https://natniu.net/w/11.html
The Sunshine Is Different Here
Upper: Photograph, the scenes of "2015 NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhobition". Lower: This is the installation version of "The Sunshine Is Different Here".
The Sunshine Is Different Here
Photograph, Premium Glossy Photo Paper, 87*57cm, 2015
The Sunshine Is Different Here
Photograph, The scene of "Meet The Light - 2016 Treasure Hill Environmental Art Lantern Festival".
The Sunshine Is Different Here
Photograph, The scenes of "Meet The Light - 2016 Treasure Hill Environmental Art Lantern Festival".
Longevity Three-channel video installation, handwriting, loop play 1920*1080 Full HD MPG-4 2013
The idea of 2013’s ”Longevity” was from the artist, Luo, Jr-shih’s work
with same name. In Luo’s work, he told a story about an Indian male whose body and mental age were only two years old, but his tooth were at the real age of 26. The reason why this story attracted me so much would be that
the man’s tooth lived in the absolute physical time, but his body and soul departed from it.
After filming three white parts of my body: fingernail, the white of the eye
and tooth in macro cinematograph, I played the video by LCD TV, the white light from it lightened the words on the ground. The audiences couldn’t
see the content of the video, but were able to read the words with the light from the video, such kind of transportation showed the materiality of the
object being photographed (body) and the medium (video), the comparison between reducing and indestructibility responded to the title “Longevity” and left a question: what’s eternality?
Read more: http://natniu.net/w/12.html The video 1: https://vimeo.com/147003192 The video 2: https://vimeo.com/147003223
Longevity
The video stills of "Longevity". From top to bottom are fingernail, the white of eye and tooth.
Longevity
The scene of "2014 NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition".
Longevity
The scene of "2014 NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition".
Longevity
The detail of "Longevity".
Self Portrait Photograph, UltraSmooth Fine Art Paper, 1 piece 50*37cm, 2 pieces 2016
He is a totally blind man, painting white in an all-white space. He doesn‘t know that he is in a white space, nor does he know the color of the paint on his hands, he just keeps repeating the action of covering. I use this image to illustrate myself as a visual artist in a contemporary situation: the void is not empty, but full, excessive, and we keep painting over it. The "invisible" appearance also has the power of "seduction". I visualize those unspeakable but intuitive experiences that come from the gap between reality and self-existence in excess of each other's lives, and I would like to develop those established appearances that we are accustomed to, whether it is the production of images, visual and existential, or the excavation of desire.
Sculpture, Leather, 170*155cm 2016
I was a volunteer at the Institute for the Blind of Taiwan in 2015. During this time, I serviced and met twelve blind people in there. After getting along for a period time with them, I asked them a question: What do you think my appearance is like? They gave me the feedback by “non- visual” way with the my feature of hearing, sense of smell and my movement in space. These words show the other appearance beside our sight. I translated these descriptions of my appearance to Braille (Braille text), and engrave them on 12 pieces of leather, the size equal to my body’s height and width. The Braille words look like measles growing out from the skin, or like an ancient map from the unknown age. That it’s be a sculpture for “seeing” to people who can’t read the Braille words, and the visually impaired people can really "see" the nature underneath the appearance of things through the touching. This work is a dialectic between the visibility and invisibility, and reflect the thinking when we indulge in the appearance of “artwork”.
Read more: https://natniu.net/w/2.html
Self Portrait
Photograph, the scenes of "2015 NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition". 2015
Self Portrait
Photograph, UltraSmooth Fine Art Paper 1 piece 50*37cm, 2 pieces 2016
Self Portrait
Photograph, UltraSmooth Fine Art Paper 1 piece 50*37cm, 2 pieces 2016
Self Portrait
The detail of "Self Portrait".
Self Portrait
The detail of "Self Portrait".
Self Portrait
The description is translated to Braille.
Self Portrait
Photograph, the artist translated the words to Braille text and engraved them on the leathers.
"You’re around 173 cm in height and you weigh under 70kg, but over 60kg. Your forehead is a little
higher than most and your skin is quite pale. You are wearing something with a collar, like a polo shirt, with a belt and suit trousers. You wouldn’t wear casual clothing like just a T-shirt. You don’t wear
jewelry, like bracelets, necklaces or rings. I feel like the shape of your face makes you suit glasses and your hair is likely down to your shoulders.
Your voice has three colours: white, black and yellow. Although I’ve never seen colours, people tell me that white represents brightness and black is darkness, but your voice is a withered yellow. You give me the feel of a provincial legislator."
Self Portrait
The detail of "Self Portrait", 2015.
Self Portrait
Upper: Photograph, the scenes of "2015 NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition". Lower: The detail of "Self Portrait".
Self Portrait
Photograph, the scene of "2015 NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition". 2015
After losing my eyesight, I felt like I could see again, by perceiving everything in the world through a patchwork created through the senses beyond vision, however, every time I try to examine it critically, I find that each time it’s a little bit different or hard to put into words. Over the last few years I've attended several exhibitions and in that time I have written quite a lot on them. In a visually-led exhibition space, the entire viewing experience concerns a horizon, that is to say, it's true that I can't see the works before me with the naked eye, but through the dimensions created/brought about by the narrative guide, the combined sensory experience of one's body being present in the space, life experience and supplementary knowledge, this constitutes a unique horizon of my own.
Critic I
A Guiding Divinity NIU Jun-Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018
Someone once proposed resolving the logistical problem of getting me to the gallery saying that I could just stay at home and a narration could be fed to me in a live broadcast. And wouldn't that be convenient? My view is that if the artwork is not a video itself, then the viewers necessarily need to be in the gallery space to appreciate it, as only then is there a bodily sensory experience. The existence of the artwork at the site of the exhibition is not absolute, however, as, as soon as the artwork appears at the exhibition site, it no longer just entails the representation of a single artwork, but affects many of the greater and lesser details of the space, including the visitors to the gallery.
Author Hsu Chia-Feng
Just like the last time I took part in one of artist NIU Jun-Qiang's projects, I was both part of the artwork itself and a gallery-goer at the same time. In contrast to last time, however, as a gallerygoer this time I was misled by the video at the start because of my visual impairment. I knew that the pieces that appeared in the video wouldn’t be at the site of the exhibition, but I had forgotten that the exhibition wall covering the floor-to-ceiling windows was only temporary, so when my cane knocked on the floor-to-ceiling windows and not the exhibition wall, I experienced a momentary surprise and realization.
For me, whether it’s how the artworks are presented or the layout of the exhibition space in the video installation in NIU Jun-Qiang solo exhibition 2018, there is a juxtaposition of reality and fiction. As I sat in front of the video installation listening to NIU Jun-Qiang's narration laid on top of the visuals, while at the same time listening to what was revealed by all the myriad sounds from the video, it made me recall the experience of filming it; so many different conditions combined into the reality of the work in front of me. Walking into the exhibition, I felt a sense of loss for what I knew clearly to be a fiction. That lack of existence made me feel, not the absence of artworks at the site of the exhibition, but rather that the works had existed back when we were filming. So by the time of the opening, the exhibition space had already been transformed into a search for traces of what had once been, or, from another perspective, we were recalling the artworks from their physical location in the exhibition site. At first, I believed in the existence of NIU Jun-Qiang's artworks, because I had faith in the artist's creativity and he led me in slow steps, talking through the artworks as we traveled through the exhibition space. At the same time, in my mind, the artworks were gradually taking shape before me, and they felt at once real and illusory. Isn’t that just like how NIU Jun-Qiang's works really exist, just not within the confines of the exhibition itself? If the work is used as a metaphor for divinity, then where is the route we are to be guided upon?
In both John 9 and the second volume of Collection of Parables from Various Scriptures (Yu Fodian Zhongjingxuan Zapiyu), there are mentions of people with visual impairments, which refer to the steadfast faith of the blind, and how the worship of divinity results in a miracle or enlightenment. So can we think of the video installation like a classical scripture, in that through watching and listening to the cues and bodily practices revealed within the video installation, moving through the space as indicated and guided by the projected lights, enables the works absent from the exhibition space to become manifest on the walls one by one. Without having walked this route, would the works in the video installation not exist in a real sense or be rendered meaningless? Light cast is both clear and blurry
Actually, the site of the exhibition wasn't completely empty; as well as the lights projected on the wall, in the center of the space hung Foresee II, the standing scale that featured in his 2015 solo show. At that time I was a little indifferent to it, but this time the representation of Foresee seemed to correspond to the representation of a miracle. It illuminates the mirror in the artist's mind, it’s just a matter of when the mirror reflects candlelight, and when the viewer can capture the firelight in the mirror. It can't be forced. Thinking about it that way, it seemed quite romantic. And the image of god, which had originally been hung in the exhibition space, was moved to hang in the small display window on the first floor on my second visit. This made me think of the halo preserved in the faded image of god that we'd talked about in the video installation, and I thought how clear the allegorical meaning of this work is, in that you can see a correlation from the video or in the display window. '... film has always been a secret spiritual quest for my generation, that quiet space where you can watch something directly and with clarity. The most moving moments all take place outside the framework of the plot and the entire narrative relation between the characters, effectively leading to an experience that the audience can only react to in that place and at that moment...' Jinchi Lu, Everything I Misread under a Scorching Sun.
One time when I was leaving the metro, the security officer who was guiding me said, 'The world of people like you must be so pretty'. At the time I was a bit taken aback by his words, so I said to him that I was once able to see, and it was his turn to be taken aback, before replying after a while, 'So it's not a great tragedy, at least you're unable to see the ugly parts of this world.' I didn't keep the conversation going, because he was half right, after losing my sight I was really able to avoid many horrible sights, but many things they call 'reality', or 'truth' are reliant on perception. After losing my sight, my interests turned towards visually-led exhibitions, and I tried my best to write up my impressions. If that has all been in vain, I’m unable to say. However, in NIU Jun-Qiang solo exhibition 2018, faced with an empty exhibition hall, it was difficult for me not to be curious as to whether gallery-goers with normal eyesight could see only a white wall or the artworks? Is this a landscape of artworks created through a series of images? Is this the academic scope of professional discourse...?
‘Quiet, but not still. He is before me but not here.’
-- NIU Jun-Qiang
In May of 2018, NIU Jun-Qiang took a plan of his solo exhibition, an almost complete project, to the exhibition site to survey the space once more. The previous exhibition had already been removed on that particular day, so the gallery was completely empty for once. The floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor of the TKG+ gallery, which are often sealed off with temporary exhibition walls, but which offer a view of the trees lining the sidewalk and let the sun in, were now unobstructed. NIU Jun-Qiang told me, ‘I still remember that afternoon,’ when, after looking at the windows, he decided to do away with his original plan for the exhibition in one fell swoop, and wrote in his notepad, ‘I want to create an exhibition that isn’t seen, where the gallery-goers see what’s left on the walls after the exhibition has been taken down and the works removed, or don’t even see anything at all.’
Critic II
Searching for the Traces of What (Never) Once Was NIU Jun-Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018
The Liminality Between Artwork and Event Discussing the main themes running through NIU Jun-Qiang’s previous work, curator FENG Hsin suggests that his work takes on a new direction roughly once every three years: from observation and gaze to the negative, seeing one another and the blindness (or perception of terror) of his 2015 solo exhibition. His more recent work has attempted to pull away from his own perspective, to a broader, more universal perspective, starting out from his own low ebb at the start of the year, his repeated soul-searching and his questions as to the intangibility of faith. In the planning of this solo exhibition, the discussion centers on 'divinity', and the question the curator wants to expand upon is, 'How can one perceive the aura of an artwork?'
Excerpted from National Culture and Arts Foundation Online Magazine Special Issue Written by Lin Yi-Hsiu
'Every time I create, I don't just reveal my own story, I put myself in the place of the work, observing, choosing and digesting my position in respect to the outer world during this time. Three years went by in which, due to fear, I started to be more open to getting in touch with and examining faith. Faith is really what leads people to search for the divinity inside themselves and their inner conscience, to understand how light and shadow can coexist.' The 'fear' that NIU JunQiang talks of in his own introduction to the exhibition, refers to an eye condition he's had for several years, and it's also a topic he started dealing with in 2015: "blindness". In his last solo exhibition, NIU Jun-Qiang invited a friend of his with a visual impairment, Hsu Chia-Feng, whom he met in 2014 and who has gone completely blind due to a retinal disease, to collaborate with him on 'Self Portrait', and this time around, he's invited Chia-Feng once more (and several other people with visual impairments) to take part in a video installation. In this exhibition he reexamines the definition of 'blindness' through their discussion of three questions, 'What is god?', 'What does god look like?' and 'What does it feel like when god is present?'. NIU Jun-Qiang has stated ‘Blindness isn't being unable to see, but rather that things which originally existed visually, take on another form of existence, and that, for me is just like the existence of god.'
Just as HSU Chia-Feng discusses in his commentary on the solo exhibition, 'A Guiding Divinity', 'Someone once proposed resolving the logistical problem of getting me to the gallery saying that I could just stay at home and a narration could be fed to me in a live broadcast. And wouldn't that be convenient? My view is that if the artwork is not a video itself, then the viewers necessarily need to be in the gallery space to appreciate it, as only then is there a bodily sensory experience. The existence of the artwork at the site of the exhibition is not absolute, however, as, as soon as the artwork appears at the exhibition site, it no longer just relates to the representation of a single artwork, but affects many of the greater and lesser details of the space, including the visitors to the gallery.’ For this exhibition, the sensation of the bodies of the visitors is one of the most important aspects in completing the artwork, and the meticulous groundwork for this starts before they even enter the gallery.
In the display window at the side of the gallery looking on to the street is the first artwork, a portrait of a god that has been faded in the sun for three months before the exhibition (while it was exposed to the sun the halo and the hand were covered up, to preserve their colour), and on the steps up to the second floor gallery, the visitors pass through three small landings, with each flight lighted more poorly than the previous, and the writing on the walls, 'Quiet, but not still. He is before me, but not here.’ barely perceptible, hinting at what they’ll come upon in the gallery itself. After arriving upstairs, along with the gradual change in lighting, the visitors see a second artwork, a 25-minute-long video installation in a darkened room. The recording is divided into two main parts. The first part depicts several people with visual impairments expounding on the questions posed to them by the artist about god, while the second part depicts NIU Jun-Qiang taking ChiaFeng around the cleared exhibition space (where the gallery-goers are currently) before the exhibition had been set up, to take in a narrative guide of where the works will soon be, using physical position, gesture and the medium of touch. He discusses with the artist the ideas behind the exhibition and the sequence of the exhibition space with the curator. After the video, the visitors proceed through a corridor in the darkened room, at the end of which they will turn into the exhibition space beside the floor-to-ceiling windows which is flooded by light. The array of works mentioned in the film are only indicated with lights, not physically making an appearance (the only work that makes an appearance is Foresee, which has run through each of Niu's three solo exhibitions, and the sunlight which changes over time (Note 1)). But the works have already become previously existing works in the narration of the video we've just seen, so the exhibition site serves as a pursuit of these once existing works. Through the artist's narration these works have developed in the gallery-goers memories. NIU Jun-Qiang describes it as follows, 'For me, the exhibition site at the end is the real ending to the film.' So what is the role of the video installation here?
The main room is beside the screening room, viewers will see the empty exhibition space after they finished the video.
But is it only the bodily senses of which deafness and blindness can be predicated? In the video, NIU Jun-Qiang at one point describes to Chia-Feng a postcard that he bought in a church in Le Marais, while artist-in-residence in Paris. The postcard features a print of a fresco from a Spanish church from the Middle Ages (around 1123) called 'The Hand of Our God' and which was the inspiration for NIU Jun-Qiang's sculpture in the solo exhibition, 'The Hand of Our God'. This fresco, which was originally created above the keystone of the triumphal arch of the main apse, can be differentiated from many other images of the right hand of God, in that this disembodied right hand, divorced from its context, reaches out directly from a white circle, which appears almost like a hole in the ceiling. In the film NIU Jun-Qiang describes it to Chia-Feng as follows: 'It made me think of the Eastern artistic tradition, especially in terms of how the gesture of the hand resembles that of the Buddha. The white evokes emptiness and from that empty state, God can reach out a hand to help you, lead you, to tell you the way, to bless you, to intervene in or adopt a role in your life.' This part of the film made me think of the following line from Shao Yi in the Liji, 'If one came late and yet arrived before the torches were lighted, it was announced to him that the guests were all there, and who they were. The same things were intimated to a blind musician by the one who bid him.' On a night gathering at which they haven't yet lit the torches, a young man holds a torch in front of the road, to await the arrival of guests. If any guests arrive late, the host should guide them on the road, showing the seats of those who have already arrived, exactly what one would do with a blind person. In this piece by NIU Jun-Qiang, speech and imagery serve as that torch-bearing hand, guiding the way in the night. Without this form of guidance, both the gallery-goers and the blind would find it hard to reach a comprehensive grasp of the piece, as, before the arrival of the torchlight, nobody knows who the guests already seated (the artworks) are, and the gesture of directing people's attention with torchlight from the dark night is similar to to the hand reaching out of mid-air to give directions.
An image of the fresco inside the 12th Century Spanish church Sant Clemente de Tahull, 'The Hand of Our God', which also serves as the inspiration for Niu Jun-Qiang's sculpture 'The Hand of Our God'. "NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018 ", video, 25’07” (video still).
In many of his previous works, NIU Jun-Qiang has worked on things that the human eye can't see directly, and in which the direction of time and visual experience is often put in reverse, creating a tension in the minds of those looking on. The curator, Feng Hsin, touches on this, asking, 'How do we get a sense for the aura of an artwork? And how does this relate to your mind's eye and how you perceive it.' The poetic quality of Niu Jun-Qiang's work is often realized through the spoken word, textual description and other subtle methods, and the fascinating part of this is that it’s often in the telling, and although I said these spoken words are aimed at realizing the work more completely, they're not explicitly directing the visitors as to what is trying to be realized. We can see this clearly from his 2012 solo show 'Even They Never Met': A person holds the photo of someone they have never met and describes the situation of the person in the photo. And this style, which harvests the imagination, in his 2015 solo show 'Self Portrait' shifted to people with serious visual impairments describing the artist's appearance using non visual cues (in the end this was printed in braille). The majority of these works unfold through language, and the process by which the gallery-goers come to an understanding is like the process of developing negatives, and this kind of development isn't always realized, but the fascinating thing about Niu Jun-Qiang's work is in the distance to the expected trajectory which remains out of reach.
"NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018", video, 25’07” (video still).
In the way the exhibition has been set up to be read, there is yet another link made between the production of images and the act of viewing, the sense of the exhibition space and the torch extended by the video affects the style in which the internal narrative of the self is constructed. These styles come from the overlapping of the memory provided by the video, the relation of one's body to the space, and even one's own memory. The artist here is not evoking the spirit of an image that has already disappeared, but rather laying the foundations for what has not yet taken shape. The narrator is getting gallery-goers to project their imagination in the liminal space between reality and fiction, led by spoken word, to discuss the flow of meaning of divinity and the aura of the artwork that the exhibition is discussing.
Upper: Self Portrait, 2015 Lower: Even They Never Met, 2012
At the end of the interview, I shared a line from the second story in Wu Ming-Yi's new book The Land of Little Rain, 'How the Brain Got Language', in which Dizi, an expert on birdsong who has autism, and Freckle, who has been hard of hearing since childhood due to illness, speak in sign language, 'Dizi asks Freckle, 'Why is there so much that sign language is unable to express?' and Freckle replies, 'Spoken language is also unable to express a lot.' Freckle pauses for a moment before continuing, 'I think... language is unable to express things that are bigger than itself. Lots of things, can't be spoken of, and can't be written of, nor can they be signed, but each form of expression has something that the others lack.''
‘So, that which can’t be expressed with language, can only be discussed through art.’ says NIU Jun Qiang.
"NIU Jun Qiang Solo Exhibition 2018", video, 25’07” (video still).
Note 1: In the process of the interview, NIU Jun-Qiang discussed the sensation he had when visiting Notre Dame du Haut during his period as artist-in-residence, which got me thinking about my own experience visiting the church in the winter of 2003. What left an impression on me at the time, was not just the star-like twinkle from the clerestory windows, or the roof that looks it’s been lifted up by some invisible force, but rather that when you emerge from the dark interior of the church, the contrast the eyes immediately feel from the bright light of the snow covered ground seems to be where the architect is pointing to as the place where god can be found.
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