With the support from Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture, the Taiwan Academy in Los Angeles, partnering with the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, presents “After Hope: Videos of Resistance.” The exhibition finally survived the Covid-19 pandemic and is now open until December 2021. Over the past year, "hope" seems more important than ever with the impact of the rise of George Floyd's anti-racist activism and Covid-19. Please visit the exhibition and check more information via https://www.afterhope.com/.
"After Hope: Videos of Resistance" presents an interdisciplinary and critical examination of the potential of "hope" in form, method and action, prompting reflection on the question of "after," the complex ways in which hope affects people's visions of the future and judgments of the past, what it means to pursue "hope" and what comes after "hope"! The exhibition, shown in the Lee Gallery, features over 50 artists of single-channel video works from all over the world. These works present representative short films from different cultures and explore the meaning of "hope" from multiple perspectives. Among them, there are three Taiwanese artists invited, Isa Ho, Yuan Goang-Ming and Tsui Kuang-Yu.
Isa Ho 's "Peony" juxtaposes two different images of Asian women. One is a Kunqu actress in traditional Chinese costume and the other a Korean K-pop singer. she uses her work to rethink the role and position of women in contemporary society, in relations to the unique development of popular culture. Despite the differences in temporal and spatial backdrops, the performance styles between the two genres did not transform over time. Yuan Goang-Ming's "The 561st Hour of Occupation" films a moment from the 2014 Sunflower Student Movement in Taiwan, during which students occupied Taiwan’s parliament for 585 hours. Yuan uses a slowed-down playback speed of the Taiwanese national anthem by 50% in the empty parliamentary chamber, creating a grandiose soundtrack that turns the space into a churchlike atmosphere, where protest slogans are enshrined and the future political ecology of Taiwan is impacted. In Tsui Guang-Yu's "Stay Calm," created during his residency at the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco in 2018, he lights a long fuse attached to his body in San Francisco Chinatown. Amidst the homeless people, tourists, gamblers, and children that flock to this public gathering area, this absurdly dangerous scene of igniting the fuse elicits no reaction from the people around him. In comparison to the energetic words of blessings in the traditional buildings in the square, he feels any absurdity doesn’t seem to be so strange anymore when these contradictions become part of everyday life.
In addition to the exhibition, the museum will also organize educational events, such as workshops and the symposium, for artists to participate. An "AfterHope.com" online platform has been established to present the exhibition, related activities, and videos. Articles written by invited artists, scholars, and arts professionals are also included in the online platform to enrich the exhibition.
The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco has one of the largest collections of Asian art in the world, renowned for its collection of more than 18,000 artworks spanning 6,000 years and every region of Asia. For more than 50 years since its establishment, the Asian Art Museum continues to bridge cultures, engage the imagination, and inspire new ways of thinking.