Imagining Crisis

The Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) is presenting, from September 15 through October 14, the international exhibition Imagining Crisis, curated by Yunnia Yang. The show features ten artists from different countries: Albert Merino (Spain) , Shahar Marcus (Israel), Rossina Bossio (Colombia), Ernesto Pombo & Chimene Costa (Argentina), Kimmo Alakunnas (Finland), Hannes Vartiainen & Pekka Veikkolainen (Finland), Mihai Grecu (Romania) & Thibault Gleize (France), Masahiro Tsutani (Japan), Oliver Pietsch (Germany), Provmyza (Galina Myznikova y Sergey Provorov, Russia). Yunnia Yang describes the curatorial concept behind Imagining Crisis in this way: "As the world becomes more and more civilized, the human soul becomes more and more complicated. What technological progress and material wealth create does not necessarily produce a happiness-filled life. Guided by a 'death instinct', human beings confront all manner of crises and threats, as they imagine death in an unconscious way. This image is an expression of creativity for the artists as much as it is a contemporary memento mori. This deconstructs the entire legacy of aesthetics." This video exhibition takes as its point of departure the artist's anxieties about the art world and artistic creation, passing through the twisted shapes into which society molds the essence of the individual in the various mass-oriented communication modes (including religion), and reaching into the pressure that nature exerts on human beings in their long-awaited self-destruction. From concrete to imperceptible crisis, these artists embrace eccentric aesthetics in order to imagine death. The presence of Spanish and Latin American artists stands out in the roster of participants. Albert Merino (Spain), with Festival de arte contemporáneo, a video presenting a fictional Art Festival conceived around the concept of "The reception crisis in the artistic context," where the artist uses techniques from the mass media. His festival is organized in the scale of a large popular event, with the presence of agents working outside the creative process: galleries, curators, and collectors analyze the various contributions of the participants, in what constitutes at the same time a proposal of dreams and utopias. Rossina Bossio (Colombia) presents Proyecto Santa Belleza Volumen 3, part of a series that examines the seductive power of images and the representation of women as a means to communicate and consolidate social norms, as well as ideals of beauty and morality. In a six-minute sequence, the artist presents eight characters clad in outfits inspired on Catholic iconography, indigenous Latin American dress, and contemporary female icons that represent aspects of female identity, all involved in choreographies filled with stereotypical movements of female sexuality, like those found in advertisements, music videos, and fashion. In this way, the video satirizes seduction and the arbitrariness of social behaviors and of socially imposed values for women. Ernesto Pombo and Chimene Costa (Argentina) exhibit Efímero Festín, part of the Cultural Program of Argentina's National Antarctic Directorate, is intended to raise awareness of the risk of natural destruction. Efímero Festín tells a story of human self-destruction, positing the idea that other species will come after us. Like the dinosaurs, which disappeared forever from the planet, human beings may also be here only for a brief period. The video's soundtrack explores different audio textures from the Antarctic: loneliness, vast empty landscapes, a dream-like sensation.