Asia Pacific video on Tour

Installation view of Takahiko Iimura’s, Performance: AIUEONN Six Features 1994 / ‘Me, Myselfie and I’ GOMA 2018 / Photograph: Chloe Callistermon © QAGOMA

Installation view of Takahiko Iimura’s, Performance: AIUEONN Six Features 1994 / ‘Me, Myselfie and I’ GOMA 2018 / Photograph: Chloe Callistermon © QAGOMA / View full image

Many of us find ourselves transfixed in front of a screen… watching video is now such a part of our daily life that it has become an everyday activity — given the variety of video works, QAGOMA’s current travelling exhibition just focuses on performance, experimentation and theatricality in video art from the 1960s to the present.

You can experience a diversity of these videos when ‘Asia Pacific Video’ tours to venues in regional Queensland. Artists in the Asia Pacific were quick to embrace the new possibilities of video as it emerged as an art form in the early sixties, and the region is now home to some of the world’s leading moving image artists.

From the most basic use of a hand-held video camera to elaborate and theatrical productions, video has also allowed artists in the region to explore and communicate their social conditions, cultures and ideas on ever-evolving screen-based platforms. The exhibition highlights artists experimenting with video as an art form, capturing bodily actions and performative practices, creating intersections between contemporary art and other screen and film cultures and developing new ways to explore materials, objects and environments.

‘Asia Pacific Video’ celebrates video as an artistic device that enabled artists to bring together different expressive forms, and to investigate ideas and document activities while no longer relying on traditional art materials and methods of art-making.

Joyce Ho (Taiwan)

Overexposed memory 2015 by Joyce Ho is a video of a person suspensefully biting into pieces of fruit and reducing it to a pulpy mush in a meticulously staged production.

Joyce Ho, Taiwan b.1983 / Overexposed memory (still) 2015 / Single-channel video: 5:00 minutes, colour, sound, ed.3/5 / Purchased 2018. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Joyce Ho

Joyce Ho, Taiwan b.1983 / Overexposed memory (still) 2015 / Single-channel video: 5:00 minutes, colour, sound, ed.3/5 / Purchased 2018. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Joyce Ho / View full image

Salote Tawale (Fiji/Australia)

Salote Tawale’s I get so emotional 2006 is a critique of traditional female and Pacific islander roles that sees the artist performing various musical stereotypes performed to the lyrics of Whitney Houston’s ‘I get so Emotional’.

Salote Tawale, Fiji/Australia b.1976 / I get so emotional (still) 2006 / Single-channel SD video: 4:30 minutes, colour, sound, ed.1/4 / Purchased 2020 with funds from the Bequest of Jennifer Taylor through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Salote Tawale

Salote Tawale, Fiji/Australia b.1976 / I get so emotional (still) 2006 / Single-channel SD video: 4:30 minutes, colour, sound, ed.1/4 / Purchased 2020 with funds from the Bequest of Jennifer Taylor through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Salote Tawale / View full image

Tsui Kuang Yu (Taiwan)

Tsui Kuang Yu’s Shortcut to the Systematic Life 2002–05 is a series of intentional misunderstandings of urban architecture and ritual which playfully interact with public space and what it means to live in the city.

Tsui Kuang-Yu, Taiwan b.1974 / The Shortcut to the Systematic Life: I am fine, I don’t get wet (still) 2002 / Digital video transferred to DVD: 4:24 minutes, colour, stereo, single-channel video, 4:3, ed.14/15 / Purchased 2010 with a special allocation from the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Tsui Kuang-Yu

Tsui Kuang-Yu, Taiwan b.1974 / The Shortcut to the Systematic Life: I am fine, I don’t get wet (still) 2002 / Digital video transferred to DVD: 4:24 minutes, colour, stereo, single-channel video, 4:3, ed.14/15 / Purchased 2010 with a special allocation from the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Tsui Kuang-Yu / View full image

Takahiko Iimura (Japan/United States)

Performance: AIUEONN Six Features 1994 is a work by pioneering video artist Takahiko Iimura exploring the relationship between Japanese and English in an experiment of performance and sound.

Takahiko Iimura, Japan/United States b.1937 / Performance: AIUEONN Six Features (still) 1994 / Videotape: 8:00 minutes, colour, stereo / The James C. Sourris AM Collection. Purchased 1999 with funds from James C. Sourris through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Takahiko Iimura

Takahiko Iimura, Japan/United States b.1937 / Performance: AIUEONN Six Features (still) 1994 / Videotape: 8:00 minutes, colour, stereo / The James C. Sourris AM Collection. Purchased 1999 with funds from James C. Sourris through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Takahiko Iimura / View full image

Neha Choksi (India)

In Leaf Fall 2008 Neha Choksi shows the denuding of a rural peepul tree over the course of a single day. The surviving leaf is made special through the day’s relentless process of subtraction.

Neha Choksi, United States/India b.1973 / Leaf fall (still) 2008 / Single-channel digital video on DVD: 14:14 minutes, looped, colour, stereo, English subtitles, widescreen, ed.4/4 (2 AP) / Purchased 2011. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Neha Choksi

Neha Choksi, United States/India b.1973 / Leaf fall (still) 2008 / Single-channel digital video on DVD: 14:14 minutes, looped, colour, stereo, English subtitles, widescreen, ed.4/4 (2 AP) / Purchased 2011. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Neha Choksi / View full image

Junebum Park (South Korea)

The interaction between artist and subject forms the basis of Junebum Park’s artistic practice where his hands can be found looming larger than life. In The advertisement 2004 a commercial district is bombarded with the mania of advertising billboards and logos, placed and replaced on the buildings.

Junebum Park, South Korea b.1976 / The advertisement 2004 / DVD: 2:00 minutes, colour, sound / Purchased 2007 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Junebum Park

Junebum Park, South Korea b.1976 / The advertisement
2004 / DVD: 2:00 minutes, colour, sound / Purchased 2007 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Junebum Park / View full image

Nathan Pohio (New Zealand)

In Landfall of a spectre 2007 Nathan Pohio mimics a large sea swell by using swaying movements while filming a lenticular print of a colonial ship. Looping endlessly, this ghost ship appears to be forever adrift.

Nathan Pohio, New Zealand b.1970 / Landfall of a spectre (still) 2007 / Digital (AVI) file: 1:55 minutes, black and white, silent, ed.1/5 / Purchased 2008. The Queensland Government’s Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Nathan Pohio

Nathan Pohio, New Zealand b.1970 / Landfall of a spectre (still) 2007 / Digital (AVI) file: 1:55 minutes, black and white, silent, ed.1/5 / Purchased 2008. The Queensland Government’s Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Nathan Pohio / View full image

Yang Zhenzhong (China)

In Yang Zhenzhong’s 922 rice corns 2000 a hen and a cockerel can be seen alongside a small pile of rice. How many grains of rice are there and which fowl, male or female, will eat the most? The viewer must watch to find out which of the birds will win the contest for nourishment.

Yang Zhenzhong, China b.1968 / 922 rice corns 2000 / Betacam SP and DVD formats: 8:00 minutes, colour, stereo / (Betacam SP case: 17.2 x 11.2 x 3.0cm; DVD case: 19.1 x 13.5 x 1.5cm) / Purchased 2005. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Zhenzhong Yang

Yang Zhenzhong, China b.1968 / 922 rice corns 2000 / Betacam SP and DVD formats: 8:00 minutes, colour, stereo / (Betacam SP case: 17.2 x 11.2 x 3.0cm; DVD case: 19.1 x 13.5 x 1.5cm) / Purchased 2005. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Zhenzhong Yang / View full image

Venues 2021–2024

Lockyer Valley Art Gallery, Gatton / 22 October – 28 November 2021
Cooroy Butter Factory Art Centre / 3 December 2021 – 16 January 2022
Mulga Lands Art Gallery, Charleville / 22 January – 30 April 2022
Texas Regional Art Gallery / 21 August – 31 October 2022
Lapunyah Art Gallery, Chinchilla / 9 July – 20 August 2022
Rosalie Gallery, Goombungee / 7 September – 30 October 2022
Coalface Art Gallery, Moranbah / 30 November 2022 – 16 January 2023
The Court House Gallery, Cairns / 18 February – 16 April 2023
Caboolture Regional Art Gallery / 6 May – 22 July 2023
Umbrella Studio, Townsville / 4 November – 17 December 2023
The Rex, Monto / 3 February – 20 April 2024
Gatakers Artspace, Maryborough / 4 May – 30 June 2024
Wondai Regional Art Gallery / 6 July – 18 August 2024

‘Asia Pacific Video’ coincides with ‘The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’, the tenth edition of QAGOMA’s flagship exhibition series in Brisbane from 4 December to 26 April 2022, as well as the regional tour of ‘Asia Pacific Contemporary’ and ‘APT10 Kids on Tour’.

Featured image: Takahiko Iimura Performance: AIUEONN Six Features (still) 1994
#APT10QAGOMA

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    Voices and visions come alive: Asia Pacific video

    Artists in the Asia Pacific region were quick to embrace the possibilities of video art as it first began to emerge, and the region is home to some of the world’s leading moving image artists. With techniques that range from the most basic use of a handheld video camera to elaborate, theatrical productions, video continues to enable artists in the Asia Pacific to explore and communicate their social conditions, cultures and ideas on ever-evolving screen-based platforms. In the 1960s and 70s, pioneering Japanese new media artist Takahiko Iimura performed and made experimental films, his first experiments prompted by his introduction to Korean-born media artist Nam June Paik. His practice later developed into installations in which he further experimented with screen media as the emerging medium of video enabled new possibility. Originally shown as part of a six-monitor video installation, Performance: AIUEONN Six Features 1994 explores the incoherent relationship between the vowel sounds and characters of the Japanese alphabet and English. The artist grotesquely distorts the screen-image self-portrait, as he enunciates to camera the vowel sounds of English and Japanese. Iimura’s work captures an artist negotiating new possibilities that video enables in a performance, while providing a playful insight into cultural difference, and yet meanwhile his work is imbued with more conventional aspects of abstract art as it transitions between colour and shape. Video plays only one part of a broader ouvre for Taiwanese artist Joyce Ho, but one in which performative actions can be fastidiously controlled. Ho has been strongly influenced by avant-garde theatre, and in particular has been fascinated with the theatrical device of the prelude — an opening scene that produces a sense of anticipation — and a desire to extend that suspense infinitely. In Ho’s work, there is always another layer to the everyday, and always other ways of seeing the familiar. Shot against a lemon-yellow wall, Overexposed memory 2015 features an actor slowly squeezing and biting into several different pieces of fruit, lingering on their surfaces until they collapse into pulpy mush. To emphasize the effect, Ho subjected the fruit to prolonged boiling, before painting the surfaces in their original colours to create the illusion of ripeness, so that as they break apart, pigment mingles unnaturally with their juices. The theatrical capacity enabled by time-based media like video are also employed in the public sphere, through which interventions into public spaces are executed to create layered messages about social contexts while revealing idiosyncrasies of daily ritual. Tsui Kuang-Yu relies on a spontaneous approach to creating public interventions, relying on the reaction of people and surroundings to examine aspects of urban life and human behaviour in regulated contemporary city environments. A recurrent feature in Tsui’s work is a sophisticated critique of public life, its social groups and urban systems Shot in London and Taipei, Shortcut to the Systematic Life 2002–05 presents a series of intentional misunderstandings of urban architecture and ritual — specifically, that which prescribes where and when to walk, work, exercise or play and how to dress. With a slapstick sense of humour, Tsui’s ideos reflect on the changing city and what it means to live there. 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The varying camera angles and astute editing provide a propulsive and poetic viewing experience as the group goes about its curious task. Since its introduction as an artform, video has brought forth a new set of formal and technical devices for artists to test and manipulate, and the field remains one of the most quickly changing forms of artistic production as new technologies of recording and modes of display continue to evolve. Junebum Park experiments with the camera’s view, how the experience can change with angles, depth and scale, and how the factor of time can be manipulated with looping, repetition and layering. Park uses studio production to construct miniature stages and optical tricks in which daily human actions are humorously emphasised as repetitive and banal, such as the comical distortion of urban life referenced in The advertisement 2004. 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