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Chieh-Jen Chen
Exhibitions : CHIEH JEN Chen - TAYOU Pascale Marthine
Review :
Shown at the International Pavillion of the Venice Biennial earlier this year, the work of Chen Chieh-Jen (b. 1960) has been noticed during various other shows of the international contemporary art scene, namely at the Sao Paolo and the Tapei Biennials (1998), the Venice Biennial and the Mexico City Photography Biennial (1999), the Lyon Biennial, the Kwangju Biennial, Photo Espana 2000, the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris (2001) and the Queens’ Museum, New-York (2001).
The work of Chen is guided by a reflection on the complexity of memory - photographic, historic, genealogic- and takes its roots in a system of popular belief, where Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism mix : the one present in the work "Karmic Mirror" can also be found in the work "the Hell of the Chinese".
"Though this mirror, the dead look at the living and see themselves when they were alive. How real are the images that they see thanks to this approach? How can hidden memories be revealed through pictures?" are the questions crucial to the artist.
In his first film, Lingchi : Echoes of a Historical Photograph, it is totally justified to speak of an aesthetic of the horror, especially in the first series. Indeed, the original documents are shots from a vision of nightmare, where horror, courage, anxiety, pity and ecstasy mingle.
Factory, his second film, is, like the first, more than a simple historical documentary. The crux of its interest lies in conveying the cyclical aspects of time. Through the repetition of actions, such as the fans continually switched on, the women workers waking up or falling asleep, the endlessness of time becomes apparent and reinforced by the continuous showing of the film regardless of any beginning or end.
Precursor of Performance Art in Taiwan, Chen Chieh-Jen is one of the major Body Art artists in Asia.
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