ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Over the course of five years, Taiwanese photographer and multimedia artist Chou Ching-hui used zoos as creative inspiration and location to show the excesses and contradictions of contemporary society. He held large-scale productions at the Hsinchu and Shoushan zoos involving actors, intricate sets and hundreds of props.
Animal Farm is the outcome of this process: surrealistic, theatrical images that stage human behaviours and social interactions in enclosures meant to exhibit animals: a family meal behind an electrified wire, a playground full of children under the watchful eye of a leopard, an elegant women at her toilette, encircled by a spiked fence and a moat.
By inserting an everyday scene in an unlikely setting, the artist leads the audience to analyse and interpret the images. Amid references to celebrity culture, the canons of beauty or classical Western art, the photographs constructed by Chou address issues such as consumerism, the obsession with self-image, real life isolation versus digital connectivity, mental illness, gender issues and stereotypes.
Absurdity and displacement are emphasized as the artist situates humans among other animal specimens at the zoo, a site so full of “imagination and conflict”. Mysterious, visually exuberant images are thus crafted, revealing the invisible prisons society forces onto all of us.
Animal Farm integrates nine large-scale photographs, nine videos, portraits, and installations, organized in three themed sections: Collective Behavioural Consciousness, Survival Consciousness and Body Consciousness. As much as it drives human behaviour, consciousness also restricts it.
COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOURAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Animal Farm No.2 portrays the mechanical, repetitive aspects of everyday life, where consumption and domestic life can signify abundance and peace, but also stifling connement. The subtle irony of Animal Farm No.5 denounces how contemporary art has relinquished its critical power to cater to the interests of the art market. Animal Farm No.8 addresses the overdependency on communication technologies in social interactions, as well as the underlying loneliness and emptiness.
SURVIVAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Animal Farm No.3 captures two contrasting attitudes in the face of the inescapable process of aging. Almost voyeuristic, Animal Farm No.4 peers into the privacy of a couple. Cheerless and subdued, they embody reproductive challenges and social pressure around the roles assigned to men and women. A gloomy, cold, dark blue atmosphere is how Animal Farm No.6 hints at the strain of living with mental illness, personified by a woman on the edge.
BODY CONSCIOUSNESS
From the canons of Western classical art to digital influencer culture, Animal Farm No.1 exposes the obsession with ideals of beauty pursued at any cost, and the industries that commodify the body. Surrounded by fine clothes and shoes, the central figure in Animal Farm No.7 is held prisoner by a stereotype of womanhood she herself submits to. As we look on, another prison is revealed... Departing from a festive wedding setting, Animal Farm No.9 addresses the underlying social conflicts around same-sex marriage and gender issues.
About the artist
Born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1965, Chou Ching-hui is an established artist known as a talented photographer. Chou began his career as a photojournalist after graduated from World College of Journalism ( currently known as Shih Hsin University), he gradually devoted his passion on art and turned his focus on photography pieces making. Chou’s large-scale photography projects always involve a long-term research on the subject, such as series of ‘Out of the Shadows’ (1993), ‘Vanishing Leagues: Images of Workers’ (2002), ‘Wild Aspirations: the Yellow Sheep River Project’ (2009) and ‘Animal Farm’ (2015). Chou’s early narrative style was a combination of documental and poetic languages, expressing his point of view on the subjective matters through capturing the moments of events. ‘Animal Farm’ created in 2015 was his first attempt to the work on the staged photography, the dedicated details and the bright colour contribute to a surreal scene that sates his unique artistic language. ‘A Promised Land: The Planet of Angels’ is a recent project started from 2021, it attempts to address the attention of ‘empathy’ in contemporary society through presenting the living condition of children with mental and physical challenges.
Chou’s work has been frequently invited to be exhibited in Berlin, Frankfurt, Florence, Sydney, Hague, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, and has been collected by museums and private institutions in Taiwan and abroad. In addition, the limited edition of photography albums that extended from his art projects have won prestigious international and Taiwanese awards, including the iF Design Award, Red Dot Design Award, and Golden Butterfly Award, the prizes are the recognition and encouragement of the high-quality production in a global stander. In year 2022, Chou was invited by the well-Known Museu do Oriente in Lisbon Portugal and present his large-scale solo exhibition ‘Animal Farm’.
More informationAnimal Farm - Exhibition by Chou Ching-hui
Until 11 December 2022
Museu do Oriente
Avenida Brasília, Doca de Alcântara (North), 1350-352 Lisbon (Portugal)
www.foriente.pt
