Venice Biennale Taiwan Pavilion Opens, Theme Explores Anxiety in the Digital Age
The Taiwan Pavilion at the 61st Venice International Art Biennale, featuring new media artist Lee Yi-Fan, has opened at the Palazzo delle Prigioni in Venice. The exhibition, titled "Screen Melancholy," delves into anxieties of the digital age and the intricate relationship between human perception and technology.
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Central News
(Central News Agency reporter Huang Ya-shih, Venice, May 7) The "61st Venice International Art Biennale" Taiwan Pavilion, organized by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, held its opening and public events from today until May 9. This year, Taiwanese artist Lee Yi-Fan is representing Taiwan, exhibiting at the Palazzo delle Prigioni, a landmark building in Venice. Prominent promotional posters at the entrance of the building and the ferry station have attracted much attention.
The "61st Venice International Art Biennale" Taiwan Pavilion is exhibited at the Palazzo delle Prigioni, adjacent to St. Mark's Square in Venice. The official exhibition period is from May 9 to November 22, with opening and public events held from May 7 to 9, and the opening reception taking place on the evening of May 7.
This year, new media artist Lee Yi-Fan represents Taiwan, curated by Raphael Fonseca, a visual arts curator from Culturgest (Lisbon and Porto, Portugal). Both grew up during the generation when internet technology was gradually emerging, and through cross-regional and cross-cultural dialogue, they respond to the complex relationship between images, technology, and human experience in the digital age.
Lee Yi-Fan's creations span across various media such as painting, animation, game engines, and generative images. He continuously explores how images shape human perception, narrative methods, and self-understanding in an era of information overload.
Lee Yi-Fan, with a narrative style of black humor and irony, combined with jump-cut image rhythms and a monologue tone mixed with tutorial videos, developed a unique puppet manipulation system for image performance, guiding the audience to re-examine the nature of people's viewing behavior today, and further delving into the power logic behind image production, contemplating how individuals position themselves.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum pointed out that Microsoft launched its first Windows system 40 years ago, and the "window" on computer or mobile phone screens became an important interface for the public to understand and view the world. Against this backdrop, this year's Taiwan Pavilion is titled "Screen Melancholy," continuing the concept of "melancholy" in art history, responding to the constantly changing anxieties and emotions in the contemporary digital environment.
The exhibition title was originally conceived in Portuguese as Melancolia de tela, referring to the melancholic phenomenon generated by people living with screens for a long time; as it was translated into English as Screen Melancholy and Chinese as "鬱卒的平面" (Screen Melancholy), it unfolded multi-layered and poetic dialogues in different contexts.
The "screen" referred to in the exhibition title can refer to the sense of melancholy caused by the flattened viewing method shaped by screens and digital interfaces, or it can allude to the inherent melancholic state already existing within people, projected onto different interfaces, thereby revealing how technology affects people's perceptual emotions and daily viewing experiences today. At the same time, it echoes the curatorial theme of this year's Venice Biennale, "In Minor Keys," focusing on introverted and complex emotional states, evoking human nature and subjective perception.
The exhibition's eponymous work is Lee Yi-Fan's third new creation using a game engine as an image production method, and he has also developed this into a unique site-specific work unprecedented in his creative career. He continues his monologue narrative, reflecting on image production tools within the "Software as a Service" system, adding a response to the history and architectural context of the exhibition venue.
Lee Yi-Fan transforms the exhibition venue, the Palazzo delle Prigioni, into a dynamic stage. When viewers are in this former prison building, the scene shifts in the video mirror the reality before their eyes, creating a mirroring echo. Viewers and the puppet-like characters in the film seem to jointly experience the blurring of the boundaries between "real" and "virtual," trapped in a constantly revolving state of viewing, experiencing an image narrative that reflects themselves.
This exhibition integrates space into an overall one-piece image combined with mixed-media installations, which is also the Taipei Fine Arts Museum's first attempt since holding exhibitions at the Palazzo delle Prigioni since 1995. Large-scale custom-made sculptures are scattered throughout the exhibition space, fragmented limbs such as palms, feet, heads, partial legs, and arms echo the characters in the images, allowing fictional and physical sensory experiences to coexist in the space.
Fonseca and Lee Yi-Fan will hold a dialogue lecture from 4 PM to 5 PM local time on May 7, discussing the exhibition's conceptual process, starting from the study of puppets, manipulation, movement, and the human body. Following this, at 5 PM on May 3, Korean artist Eunju Hong will be invited to present her re-arranged work "When I Cried with Joy, She Was Heartbroken," creating a resonance and dialogue with Lee Yi-Fan's new work. (Editor: Tang Sheng-yang) 1150507
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(Central News Agency reporter Huang Ya-shih, Venice, May 7) The "61st Venice International Art Biennale" Taiwan Pavilion, organized by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, held its opening and public events from today until May 9. This year, Taiwanese artist Lee Yi-Fan is representing Taiwan, exhibiting at the Palazzo delle Prigioni, a landmark building in Venice. Prominent promotional posters at the entrance of the building and the ferry station have attracted much attention.
The "61st Venice International Art Biennale" Taiwan Pavilion is exhibited at the Palazzo delle Prigioni, adjacent to St. Mark's Square in Venice. The official exhibition period is from May 9 to November 22, with opening and public events held from May 7 to 9, and the opening reception taking place on the evening of May 7.
This year, new media artist Lee Yi-Fan represents Taiwan, curated by Raphael Fonseca, a visual arts curator from Culturgest (Lisbon and Porto, Portugal). Both grew up during the generation when internet technology was gradually emerging, and through cross-regional and cross-cultural dialogue, they respond to the complex relationship between images, technology, and human experience in the digital age.
Lee Yi-Fan's creations span across various media such as painting, animation, game engines, and generative images. He continuously explores how images shape human perception, narrative methods, and self-understanding in an era of information overload.
Lee Yi-Fan, with a narrative style of black humor and irony, combined with jump-cut image rhythms and a monologue tone mixed with tutorial videos, developed a unique puppet manipulation system for image performance, guiding the audience to re-examine the nature of people's viewing behavior today, and further delving into the power logic behind image production, contemplating how individuals position themselves.
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum pointed out that Microsoft launched its first Windows system 40 years ago, and the "window" on computer or mobile phone screens became an important interface for the public to understand and view the world. Against this backdrop, this year's Taiwan Pavilion is titled "Screen Melancholy," continuing the concept of "melancholy" in art history, responding to the constantly changing anxieties and emotions in the contemporary digital environment.
The exhibition title was originally conceived in Portuguese as Melancolia de tela, referring to the melancholic phenomenon generated by people living with screens for a long time; as it was translated into English as Screen Melancholy and Chinese as "鬱卒的平面" (Screen Melancholy), it unfolded multi-layered and poetic dialogues in different contexts.
The "screen" referred to in the exhibition title can refer to the sense of melancholy caused by the flattened viewing method shaped by screens and digital interfaces, or it can allude to the inherent melancholic state already existing within people, projected onto different interfaces, thereby revealing how technology affects people's perceptual emotions and daily viewing experiences today. At the same time, it echoes the curatorial theme of this year's Venice Biennale, "In Minor Keys," focusing on introverted and complex emotional states, evoking human nature and subjective perception.
The exhibition's eponymous work is Lee Yi-Fan's third new creation using a game engine as an image production method, and he has also developed this into a unique site-specific work unprecedented in his creative career. He continues his monologue narrative, reflecting on image production tools within the "Software as a Service" system, adding a response to the history and architectural context of the exhibition venue.
Lee Yi-Fan transforms the exhibition venue, the Palazzo delle Prigioni, into a dynamic stage. When viewers are in this former prison building, the scene shifts in the video mirror the reality before their eyes, creating a mirroring echo. Viewers and the puppet-like characters in the film seem to jointly experience the blurring of the boundaries between "real" and "virtual," trapped in a constantly revolving state of viewing, experiencing an image narrative that reflects themselves.
This exhibition integrates space into an overall one-piece image combined with mixed-media installations, which is also the Taipei Fine Arts Museum's first attempt since holding exhibitions at the Palazzo delle Prigioni since 1995. Large-scale custom-made sculptures are scattered throughout the exhibition space, fragmented limbs such as palms, feet, heads, partial legs, and arms echo the characters in the images, allowing fictional and physical sensory experiences to coexist in the space.
Fonseca and Lee Yi-Fan will hold a dialogue lecture from 4 PM to 5 PM local time on May 7, discussing the exhibition's conceptual process, starting from the study of puppets, manipulation, movement, and the human body. Following this, at 5 PM on May 3, Korean artist Eunju Hong will be invited to present her re-arranged work "When I Cried with Joy, She Was Heartbroken," creating a resonance and dialogue with Lee Yi-Fan's new work. (Editor: Tang Sheng-yang) 1150507
Stand with the facts; every sponsorship you provide strengthens the power to protect journalistic freedom.
Download the Central News Agency's "First-hand News" App to stay updated with the latest news.
All text, images, and videos on this website may not be reproduced, publicly broadcast, or publicly transmitted and used without authorization.