French Chair in Taiwan: Ben Yu Solo Exhibition,
法國椅子在台灣 - 觀光旅遊系列：游本寬個展
What does Yu´s French Chair represent? It is an antique foreign artifact, the symbol of an alien Western culture and aesthetics.
This alien object is ever present in Yu´s pictures, set in contrast to Taiwan contemporary landscapes: landscapes of modernity and nature, of conscious architectural compositions and spontaneous art creations, of beauty and ugliness.
What strikes in the backgrounds to the chair, is the absence of a historical heritage. And this is maybe the key to Yu´s work. In his pictures, Taiwan emerges as an exiled society, attempting to re-root itself in the contemporary world, without a tangible past. It is a country searching for ways to reappropriate the history of its art and aesthetics; oscillating between reproducing elements of that cultural heritage and adopting Western art forms and values.
Yu´s backgrounds show urban landscapes where Western modernity has invaded the fields and the forest. Where the symbols of capitalist development - buoyant advertising signs, parking lots, commercial centers and skyscrapers - are intermingled with elements of traditional culture and aesthetics -- curved roofs, religious shrines, paper lampions, decorative patterns. Where alien icons -- the Venuses and statues of liberty - interact with buddas and dragons. Where market-oriented architecture alternates with spontaneous recreations of traditional spaces.
Yu´s camera has captured and amplified these contrasts in images of singular beauty. The French Chair is the lens through which a complex social reality is fixed in pictures of relevant aesthetic significance.
State College, June 27, 2000
French Chair in Taiwan: Ben Yu Solo Exhibition, 法國椅子在台灣 - 觀光旅遊系列：游本寬個展: aaa.org.hk/en/collections/search/library/french-chair-in-taiwan-ben-yu-solo-exhibition
08-05 - 29-05-1999
Flavia Martinelli
Professor of Spatial Systems Analysis
University of Reggio Calabria, Italy
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