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M+, Hong Kong, © Chang Chao-Tang
Chang Chao-Tang 張照堂
Sinchu, Taiwan 1962 新竹 五指山 1962
1962
Chang Chao-Tang is among the most celebrated and pioneering Taiwanese artists of the last century. His surrealist photographic sensibilities, cultivated since the early 1960s, had a strong influence on the look of media and visual culture in Taiwan. In addition to developing an avant-garde photography practice, Chang was a photojournalist, a cinematographer, and a filmmaker. From 1968 onward, he worked for the state-owned China Television Company and produced several documentaries exploring Taiwanese identity amidst the nativist movement of the 1970s and 1980s. He was also involved in Hong Kong cinema in the 1980s.
Sinchu, Taiwan 1962 is from a series of experimental photographs produced between 1962 and 1965 that made Chang a breakout success. Chang examined photography as an artistic medium and explored freedom of expression through staged, absurdist actions in nondescript locations, capturing the ennui and frustration of his generation in Taiwan under martial law. Titled with place names and dates, each image has a diaristic quality and evokes a sense of locality. The location of this photograph is Wuzhishan, a renowned sight in Sinchu. A headless male figure, a signature trope in Chang’s work, is depicted here nude, juxtaposed with a mountainous landscape. His body is tilted at a precarious angle and hunched, suggesting angst. In the distance, terraced farms are seen in clear focus while the figure in the foreground is blurred. A few characters, while largely illegible, are carved into the rock in the bottom right. The sense of confinement amidst a larger, potentially threatening context is strong.
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