Phantom of Civilization – Fujui Wang, Chi-Tsung Wu, Goang-MingYuan

Phantom of Civilization, an exhibition curated collaboratively by Casino Luxembourg-Forum d’art contemporain and TheCube Project Space, will take place on 16 May 2015 in Luxembourg. Phantom of Civilization comprises eight audiovisual works by three Taiwanese artists: Fujui Wang, Chi-Tsung Wu, and Goang-Ming Yuan. Fujui Wang will also stage a live performance Hyper Transmission at the opening of the exhibition.

Initiated in 2012, a bilateral exchange curating project between TheCube and Casino has been underway since Kevin Muhlen, the artistic director of the latter, visited Taiwan. As the first-phase result of this exchange project, Muhlen curated the Taiwan-hosted exhibition UNGROUND at TheCube in September 2014, presenting the audiovisual installation by artists Gast Bouschet and Nadine Hilbert from Luxembourg. Stephen O’Malley, sound designer for the work, was also invited to give a live performance at the opening on 11 September 2014.

As the second-phase result of the exchange project, Phantom of Civilization is the Luxembourg-hosted exhibition that introduces the aforementioned three Taiwanese artists to the European audience. This exhibition seeks to profoundly examine and reflect on the achievements of contemporary civilizations through the artworks that the three artists created in the past decade. These artists are famous for their skillful use of different technological media in developing unique vocabulary of artistic expression. The exhibited artworks may first seem to be in isolation from one another. Nevertheless, they spontaneously engage in meaningful dialogues at different levels of the civilized world and contemporaneity in which we inhabit. Their works encourage the viewers to reflect on the essence of modern life, the speculations are indissolubly linked to the dialectics and philosophical reflections on the relationships between artifacts and the nature, material and spirit, as well as reality and imagination.

Based on this curatorial collaboration, TheCube and Casino expect to strengthen the cultural understanding between Taiwan and Luxembourg. This project is under the financial auspices of Ministère de la Culture, Luxembourg; Ministry of Culture, Taiwan (Centre Culturel de Taïwan à Paris); and Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei City Government.