Artworks presentation of the Artist Residency at Tung Ho Steel Enterprise Co

Exhibition Description

Liu had been the artist-in-residence in the Tung Ho Steel under the program of the National Culture and Arts Foundation in 2009, not exactly a newcomer of steel factory. This time he completed more than twenty art pieces with different sizes, and the motif of Iron Man series (or Superman series) he had created last time, the show-off bodybuilders with hands lifting, maintained. According to their forms and compositions, they can be categorized into three types: Hollowed Iron Men outlined by fire-cut steel, large human bodies welded by junk iron components, and Iron Men profiled by thick steel panels that, with pieces of slag during steelmaking, constituted the Altered Territory series. The first two types came from his earlier series, and the third was newly developed. The application of slag and scraps demonstrated his freestyle of making use whatever he can find. Even with thick steel panels, Liu prefers the openness, instantaneity and freedom of steel, and based on his habitual method of “permutation of repeated elements”, he developed a lively and spontaneous way of creation.

Echoing the method of “permutation”, Liu played plurality through combining components of different sizes with groups of various numbers. Dialogue in Altered Territory consisted pairs of Iron Men (Fig. 2); Greeting Wind and Dance in Altered Territory (Figs. 3, 4) were sculpture groups. Altered Territory, Imagery and Iron Men Mountain (Figs. 5, 6, 7) comprised crowds of figures in different sizes. Stacking or gathering, through nenting on the changing relations between elements, Liu brought out diverse facets of his wor reproductive, organic lives and endless possibilities. Their systematic sepettion was like ce demonstrating the intrigue of natural reproduction with mechanic duplication.

It is not to emphasize the regularity of repetition, but to concentrate strength and intensity. When presenting the enormous intensity, Liu let the standardized elements alter. Each clear-cut Iron Man actually has little difference from one another. In Altered Territory series, steel was melted with fire to shape sweat drops over fleshy human bodies. Different movements of limbs and torsos were also positioned with hot fire so each Iron Man has his own character, and the common and uncommon features became dialectic regarding the unique but ordinary nature of every being. Through slight changes, repetition was given deep meanings. It escaped from the boredom of homogenesis and order, and expanded the connotation of metaphors. The elements constituting Iron Men have been endowed with human figures. The similar but slightly different human figures responded to the natural laws, which were recognized and reflected in industrial machination.

_{Quoted from: Chun-Lan LIU, Extraordinary Relation 1.0: The Tung Ho Steel International Artist-in-Residence Program. Extraordinary Relation: Artworks vs. Products, p14-16. Taipei: Tung Ho Steel Foundation.}

Exhibition works