Jungle Jungle — ZHANG XU zhan Solo Exhibition
2022.08.20 ─ 2022.11.13 Taipei Fine Art Museum Gallery 3A（3F）
In his recent works, artist ZHANG XU Zhan focuses on the dialogue and connection between the locality of Taiwanese culture and the globality of international culture; for example, how the meaning of music changes in circulation, and how oral stories are infiltrated in different regions to produce localized versions. Not only does he explore the general principles of cultural mobility, but also integrate the uniqueness of those similarities and heterogeneities, and to create another reproduction through the creative process. Jungle Jungle—ZHANG XU zhan Solo Exhibition starts from the “folk tales” common all over the world, and opens up the exploration of global connection through the textual similarity of folk tales.
This exhibition includes his complete installations shown at the 2020 Yokohama Triennale in Japan and his new animated video presented at the“ Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year”in 2021, both of which are being shown in Taiwan for the first time. The exhibition combines different types of works such as video animation installations, paper puppet installations, and mixed media sculptures.
《Compound Eyes of Tropical》(Animal Story series)
Medium：Single channel video , 4K , color , sound 12.2 (5.1)
Year：2020 – 2022
Time：16 min
The Film is inspired by the costumes of yi zhen performers from Taiwan’s ceremonial festivals. Originally adapted from the Southeast Asian folktale ‘The Mousedeer Crosses the River’, the work integrates similar folktale narratives from different countries, to create the half-mousedeer, half-fox shaman puppet dancer in the animation. The dancer switches back and forth between human and animal, using his wit to fool the crocodiles in the river, in an attempt to reach the other side.
The video not only presents an interpretation of the original story itself, but also regards the general principles and the morphology of folktales as a form of narrative container. The symbol of a mirror, which reflects identity, is used in the work as a metaphor for this narrative container. Like the fractured perspective of the fly’s compound eyes, the story’s motif leads the audience to travel back and forth through various interlinked narratives from different countries, and know the same thing different position, discussing cultural flow, identity, and the connections between universal and local allegorical experiences.
《湖景廣場 Lake Stage-Animal Story Serie》
《湖景廣場Lakeview Square _ _Animal Story Series》
Medium : Wire, newspaper, glazed paper, paste, plastic beads, accessories
Size : 1000 x 350 cm
year: 2022
The river is often an important setting for folktales – the river setting in this diorama installation extends to the shadow puppet square. The characteristic of a continuous flowing river creates multiple perspectives hidden along both sides of the riverbank, depicting various storylines set around the river. When viewed from a single perspective, each storyline is replaced by another, like parade floats each with its own story. While viewed together, multiple situations gather on the same island, sharing the same space.
A ‘square’ is often the setting for a festival where animals perform, hence the name ‘Lakeview Square’.
The large-scale diorama installation exhibited in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum space is composed of two art works, Lakeview Square and Shadow Puppet Theater.
Wolves in the west and tigers in the east are often used as symbols in European and Chinese folklore. The imagery in Wolf, Tiger and Others uses a computer program to randomly select video fragments portraying shadows of the wolf, tiger, rabbit, mouse, fox and mouse deer. The animals continuously change forming an indefinable image through the use of shadows. The video work references the fairytale ‘The Town Musicians of Bremen’, depicting a tower of flies stacked on top of each other, swaying and trying to find its balance in the wind.
《洞穴寓言Cave》
《Untitle》
《Untitle》
媒材：單頻道錄像動畫裝置，4K，彩色，有聲
年份：2022
時間：循環播放
這件影像作品藉由空間與聲音的對應製造不斷搬動的循環，這顆鏡頭同時做為《熱帶複眼》裡敘事的補充，另一個時空裡，不斷堆疊著那些象徵故事的鏡子屍體，並用永恆的閃爍儲藏著時間。
This piece creates a constantly moving cycle through correspondence between space
and sound and is the additional shot for《Compound Eyes of Tropical》. In another
time and space, the mirror corpses that symbolize stories are plies up continuously,
storing time with eternal shimmer.
2019 - 2020 / 動物物語シリーズ Animal Story series
《AT5 》 , 《AT58》
Single channel installation (loop) paper installation , Sound.
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