During the '30 years of contemporary art in Taiwan China' from 1980 to 2010, we went through: emotion toward the land / post-colonial and post-modern puzzle (age of art association), desire for cities / new historical realism (age of art museum), and ordinary spectacle / new-existentialism (age of art gallery) .In terms of temporal and spatial distribution, these 30 years are overlapping and non-fragmented. For example, the art scene of the 1980s only moved into discourse debate during the early 1990s, and joined the international art multi-cultural dialogue toward the end of the same decade after it was structured by art museums. Many talents emerged during the period of 1990 to 2000, and between 2000 and 2009, artists born in the 1980s began to be promoted in the arena of international exhibitions, markets.

　　In short, prior to the 21st century, contemporary art in Taiwan was indeed highly regional conscious as it attempted to express Taiwan's regional and international circumstances through the organization and participation of international exhibitions. During its liberation in the early 21st century, the Chinese contemporary art also became the focus of international attention, and both Beijing and Shanghai attracted many international art professionals, including contemporary art galleries and artists from Taiwan in search of an art environment for survival. Under the economic and cultural exchanges as well as the technological revolution and global living context, as artists are confronted by many new situations of Asian new modern life, new circulation in knowledge and difference begins to emerge as borders gradually faded between new arts across Asia.

　　3.

　　Moving into the 21st century, Taiwan's new artists are involving more daily life in their work, hence the theme of 'A Spectade of the Ordinary' for the Taiwan Pavilion. Different to modernism artists of preceding 30 years who operate in a cultural context of modernism and historical exile, the new generation of artists exists in a context of globalization and post-modern life and culture. As situation of human existence is a humanity issue that spans across time, Taiwan's new artists were once labeled as the introvert-micro inhabitants, with a belief that there is a representative 'cold zone' between their work and discourse. In terms of totality of these new artists, personally I have come up with the term 'new-existentialism' to describe the new relationship between the 'I' they face and 'daily life'.

　　The structure of works in the Taiwan Pavilion is divided into three categories:

　　1. Flat-wall displays, including paintings, photography, video output, two-dimensional installations

　　2. Sculpture-objects, and other three-dimensional designs and installations

　　3. Video recording-animation, including the recording of idea, behavior,

　　performance, as well as short flms and animation production.

　　Based on the content and spirit of the work, these different media and forms are in turn grouped into fve sub-themes under the overall theme of 'A Spectade of the Ordinary':

　　1. Deconstruction and Construction of self-identity

　　2. Magical imagination of the virtual world

　　3. Fantastic criticism of social behavior

　　4. Aesthetic experiments of visual space

　　5. Psychological realism-The Renaissance of micro-emotional

　　With cross-strait cultural similarity and experience of historical evolution, the true signifcance of Taiwan's participation in this exhibition lies in letting the mainland audience understand the development direction of contemporary art in Taiwan through the reproduction of artistic text and images, as well as the new generation of art world of the last decade, allowing time and space to determine the geographical and cultural relevance of Taiwan's contemporary art in the historical time and space within the cultural circle of Greater China, Northeast Asia, Asia-Pacifc, and the international art scene. In the juxtaposition of identity and difference, cross-strait discourse on art development and visual evolution can be thoroughly read and understood by the largest Chinese population, while a common platform will make dialogue and comparison possible.

　　Can art transform historical consciousness, or can art be transformed by historicalconsciousness? Let us stay around for another ten years for the answer.

　　April 2010

【编辑：张瑜】