Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

Comments on the Finalist

There is no doubt that Tseng Yu-ching's visit to his own childhood is worthy of our applause.  Through the power of visual images, this exhibition evokes an obscure sensual world, disrupting societal understandings of childhood.  In Tseng's description, a child is an autonomic and dynamic being, rather than a simple sign that is subject to adult desires to compensate or to project their own lost innocence.  As a contrast to rapidly-consumed media images, Tseng's video recording provides a sense of calm observation to engender the value of reflection.  The solo exhibition is like a mirror that questions our gaze through the frame of the child as the object of our gaze.  Tseng successfully challenges the profound aspects of adults' sexual consciousness and considers the line between desire and morality.  While controversial, such controversy is the aesthetic tension of contemporary art and offers a realm of sensibility in which to position judgment.  In the name of art, this finite field is called "freedom."  (By Tai-sung CHEN)