When Marcel Duchamp exhibited his urinal, he threw the status of the object, which was so important to the culture of industrial capitalism, in question. Its meaning appeared not as an inner or innate quality but more determined by its multiple relations and position as inserted into a network of signs. Dada disrupted the composed centered human subject that had been developing since the Renaissance , and introduced chance and non-rationalism into the equation. Throughout the twentieth century there was a drive towards countering the fetishised art object and the position of spectator within the logic of exhibition. Fluxus, conceptual art, Happenings, and process art, were among those strains challenging the hegemony of the reified art object; even if these experiments rarely impacted beyond the art world and its institutions.  By the eighties though the large neo-expressionistic canvas was back in vogue, with once-radical expressionism now codified for the market, and art has in a general sense got bigger, more expensive, typically veering towards the spectacle that is at the heart of this publicity age.

Enter economic collapse, major global power shifts and the other side of optimism in regards to ideology, and process can be seen to be tugging its way to the forefront of possible relevancy again. If social media has hollowed us out and turned our most intimate connections into publicity stunts and promotional activities, then more process-based art and events conjulating disparate and '”purposeful yet purposeless” activities could be an anecdote to the pimped-out-ed-ness we feel from the management of the abstract self-image we produce, maintain and administer through the digital manipulation mechanisms we call home. There is a calling  in these times for an art of the event, the unpredictable channelling together of multiple incommensurate flows.

The exhibition “No One River Flows” at Kuangdu Museum in Taipei. Curated by WANG Chun-Chi, the exhibition features work dealing with process more than the immediacy of the  retinal, veering towards the ethemeral, by TING Chaong-Wen, LIN Kuo-Wei, CHENG Ting-Ting, Chihiro Minato, Olaf Hochherz, WANG Fujui and  RohwaJeong. These works invite the exhibition attendee to enter into the fray, and consider themselves beyond the mere relation  of visual spectator in the art they are experiencing. 

*image (left)
Let's do something, 2013
mixed media
© CHENG Ting-Ting
courtesy of the artist and KdMoFa