By Chen Guanxin | Compiled and Reported
Julian Rosefeldt, a German new media artist who has been invited to exhibit at international art institutions such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris and was awarded the 2010 Vattenfall Contemporary Art Prize, is holding his first large-scale solo exhibition in Asia—“Manufactured Worlds.” Running from now until June 3rd in the DEF area on the basement level of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), the exhibition features six of his renowned video installation works created between 2001 and 2011, including “Shelter Portraits,” “American Night,” and “The Astonished Man: Part Two of the Trilogy of Failure,” as well as 19 photographic works. The public will have the opportunity to see the works of this internationally acclaimed visual artist.
American Night: A visual art piece in the form of a Western film that critiques U.S. political strategies. (Image courtesy of Berlin ARNDT and London Max Wigram Gallery)
Julian Rosefeldt excels in visual storytelling, using humor and irony to skillfully convey narratives, combined with bold and exaggerated surrealist scenarios, to present the contradictions and absurdities of human existence in contemporary society. He transforms narrative feature films into specially designed video installation spaces, creating a unique viewing atmosphere.
Among the works on display, “Shelter Portraits” examines the typical stereotypes of Western Europe’s imagination of foreign lands from a politically incorrect perspective, encouraging viewers to re-examine or reconstruct common perceptions of specific ethnic groups and how society responds to the idea of the “Other.” “American Night” sees the artist using this faux Western film to question the political strategies of American hegemony, using the stylistic elements of a Western to reflect on the development of American history today. “The Astonished Man” is the second part of the artist’s “Trilogy of Failure,” in which one actor plays dual roles, portraying the helplessness and entanglement of human nature through bizarre and illogical behavior in the routine of daily life.
Shelter Portraits: Like Said’s Orientalism, it explores the stereotypes of Western Europe’s imagination of foreign lands. (Image courtesy of Berlin ARNDT and London Max Wigram Gallery)
Julian Rosefeldt studied architecture in Munich and Barcelona and is primarily known for creating original narrative-based video installation works. His works have been invited to numerous international exhibitions and art institutions, such as the Kunstmuseum Bonn in Germany, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, P.S.1 in New York, the São Paulo Biennial in Brazil, and the Athens Biennale in Greece. In 2009, he was invited by the Bauhaus University Weimar in Germany to serve as a visiting professor in the Media Art and Media Design department. In 2010, he was awarded the Vattenfall Contemporary Art Prize and became a member of the Film and Media Art department at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich in Bavaria, Germany.
Taipei Fine Arts Museum: www.tfam.museum.
● Extended Reading: Experiential Encounter — “Meeting the Great Future” at the National Taiwan Museum
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