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Guard of Art
︎ 2016
︎ video
︎ Taoyuan, Taiwan
It is a documentary film that discusses the relationship between artworks, subcontractors, and artists. There is a main chat scene, Chiang is chatting with his co-workers about the project concept, which was woven into the whole video. It used footage of the irrelevant time, such as non-working moments, jawing, or walking around to construct the video. That kind of unimportant process is the critical view of Chiang's concept. And it raised the question of whether the essential value of art is the finished artwork or the experience of working processes.
The whole video was filmed by the time that during the Chinese New Year vacation. Due to budget constraints, Chiang was asked to serve as an installation guard during that vacation when he worked at Sanzhi Culture Foundation, which led to the title "Guard of Art." The festival-style installation often has a shallow concept because of the profit orientation. Besides, most of the workers are art school students, which inspired Chiang to consider the value between artworks and artworkers. He questioned whether the value of artwork is determined by the artist's fame, regardless of the artwork's superficiality. He also explored the art experience. Does it come from working on art, participating in it, reading at it, etc.?
"I would like to preserve these unimportant time," said Chiang. He attempted to combine these "home video like" records with artistic discussions to represent obscure but meaningful periods. Though they may be ordinary and boring, it built bridges between sketches into finished artworks. Without the luxury surface, these regular periods are the main components of the works. Although festival-style installations often lack deep concepts, the normal unimportant time is the last aura he can find in this festival.
2016 “Guard of Art” , Tanshui alternative space , New Taipei City, Taiwan︎︎︎
2020, “Disenchantment, Exploded View, Glider vs. Airplane”, Nanjing China
