The Aesthetics and Politics of Files and Documents in Contemporary Art

In Art in the Age of Biopolitics: From Artwork to Art Documentation, Boris Groys proposes that documentation is itself a form of art, and not simply a vehicle used to “refer to art.” Art is “no longer present and immediately visible but rather something absent and hidden.” In this lecture, Chen Tai-Song further observes that files and documents on art, and their installation, are actually the deployment of a trajectory that may serve to initiate future movements or mobilize micro-societies, and this process of initiation produces both artistic rumination and poetic spaces. Chen adopts this line of inquiry as a springboard for a discussion of “The Aesthetics and Politics of Files and Documents in Contemporary Art.”

Lecturer : Chen Tai-Song︱Art Critic

CHEN Tai-Song graduated from the Department Fine Arts of National Taiwan College of Arts with a speciality in western painting in 1983, and then graduated from L’École Nationale Supérieure d'Art de Cergy (Pontoise) in 1992. Afterwards, CHEN entered L’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and received his bachelor’s degree in Plastic Art from L’Université de Vincennes-Saint-Denis (Université Paris 8) in 1995.
CHEN has held the positions of adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Commercial Design at Chung Yuan Christian University、Taipei National University of the Arts and in the Education Department of the National Taipei University of Education. He was on the Reviewing Committee of the Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture. CHEN’s specialties include: the history of painting, the history of contemporary Western art and art criticism. He has contributed a number of essays to a variety of publications regarding arts.

Time : November 15, 2014, Saturday, 14: 30-17: 00

Venue : TFAM Auditorium (BF)

The lecture is conducted in Chinese.

About Lecture Series 2014 “(Art) After Conceptual Art”

Do you want to know the story of how a urinal became art? Did you know your home can become a museum? Everyone can be an artist – would you like to be one? These secrets are revealed in the lecture series “(Art) After Conceptual Art”...“(Art) After Conceptual Art” explores the major trends and forms of expression in avant-garde art since the 1960s. By examining the processes of specific contemporary art phenomena, the lecture series provides an organized introduction to the conceptual idioms arising from the recent rapid developments in contemporary art, serving as a reference for viewers to appreciate contemporary art.