Indexing – 2016 Outstanding Art Prize Exhibition Presented at Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts

TEXT:Sue Wang    DATE: 2016.4.11

Poster of Indexing – 2016 Outstanding Art Prize Exhibition
The realistic world is composed of what we sense and therefore understood as the “external world”, while the truth of this world is formed by series of words and languages. The materialistic and the truth, one refers to the tangible, objective being, while the other reflects the intangible, subjective perception of the mind.

We experience the “external world” as we known through our senses, and then match the experience with the proper “language” internally. “We”, as the subjective body, connecting with the “external world” through uses of language, is a process described as “指物” (Zhǐwù) ― designation/ Indexing.

Installation View of Indexing – 2016 Outstanding Art Prize Exhibition 01

“‘名’ (the name, or sign) is the reference; ‘實’ (the object) is the referent.” During the course of designation, the ”name” represents the content of an artificially developed concept or knowledge. It is a language tool akin to how we describe the world, an effective code used as writing unit.  The process of naming and designation unveils the human value judgement, which also involves expression of personal preference, attitude, and emotional tendency.

Ancient artworks depicting the real world is exactly designation at work. lt functions effectively just like the linguistic tool of names and sings. Today, the expressive context of the contemporary art has departed from the kind of precise depiction with scientific language in the past, and became a form of poetic language that draws from various objects, concepts, and meta-languages. It no longer pursuits the effective “matching of reference and referent.”

Installation View of Indexing – 2016 Outstanding Art Prize Exhibition 05

This  exhibition attempts to reflect on the “designation/ Indexing” at work in contemporary art with the simple theory of sign and object: simulating the truth with sensual experiences, rather than the pursuit of reproducing reality through "sencial mimicry"; The human subjective "seeing for oneself", "hearing for oneself" is forever influenced by the "ghost of the sense"; as the artwork continually to deconstruct from a "post-meta" stance, it  presents the designation process of contemporary art as a drift. The name/sing then become a form of private language.

About the exhibition

Date: March 4 – May 1, 2016

Venue: Gallery 402/201, Kuandu Museum of Art

Curator: Yang Ya-Siang

Artists: Wang Yin-Sheng, Ho Yen-Yen, Wu Shang-Yang, Lin Shen, Yang I-Hsuan, Ou Jing-Yun, Tsai Yi-Ting, Cai Shang-Fu, Hsieh Yu-Cheng

Courtesy of the artists and Kuandu Museum of Art, for further information please visit www.kdmofa.tnua.edu.tw.