Art ＆ Award 藝術與獎項

誰需要藝術獎? 

台新銀行文化藝術基金會藝術總監  李玉玲

2000年，台新銀行文化藝術基金會成立。 

在當時台灣眾多企業支持的藝文基金會中，台新藝術基金會獨樹一幟地以「強調創新精神的當代藝術」作為支持對象，歷經一年時間的諮商與討論，隔年（2001）提出同時關注「視覺」與「表演」的藝術獎項，作為推動基金會的核心論題（agenda）。某種程度而言，台新藝術獎既是引領台新藝術基金會作為一個機構演進的想像主體；同時獎項本身也因為需要時時因應當代創作趨勢的轉向，成為與時俱進不斷演變的對象。換句話說，當一個機構決定以支持當代藝術的獎項作為其核心論題時，不可避免地，就必須要有經常「自我更新」的決心與能力。 

有鑒於此，自2011年起，在藝術獎將屆十年之際，我們開始全面檢視獎項十年的實踐，同時，也自問獎項改制的可能與必要性。在回視藝術獎十年歷史的過程中，我們面臨的首要課題是，如何再現這段時間內所積累、橫跨表演與視覺藝術的影音、文件資料，如何擴大這些資料的公眾使用與參與，更要如何讓資料在當代脈絡中，仍能產生關聯與意義。回應此一命題，2012年我們完成了「台新藝術獎數位文獻庫」，將過去十屆（2002 – 2012年）被提名或得獎的154件作品的影音資料庫全數架設於網路平台，開放公眾觀看查閱。而同時，「數位文獻庫」作為一個新形態的線上虛擬展覽，也超越了傳統「回顧展」作品本位的展覽形式。透過自由、開放的「關鍵字」重設，除藝術評論慣用的菁英語彙之外，也同時納入一般民眾的生活性用語，藉由隨機連結的搜尋體系，讓原本各自獨立的作品得以在網路世界中，發展出在現有藝術修辭下很難發生的脈絡與充滿想像性的當代關係。 

而面對未來，2013年我們啟動了對台新藝術獎轉型的想像與實驗。新制台新藝術獎的轉變，主要有以下三點精神：一、推動跨域綜覽的討論與評選機制之形成; 二、結合觀察與提名系統，全年之獨立提名與評論即時於網路公開，藉此引動網路社群關注與論述的生產；三、評選重點由「年度傑出創意表現」，轉向著重藝術的社會面向及其溝通與翻轉現實的想像能量。也可以這麼說：是由追求美學形式的完整表現與創新性，轉向回應當代藝術創作者不斷企圖定義「藝術還能是什麼？」所做的努力。早在西方的1960年代開始，「當代藝術」一詞就隱含自強調「物件生產」的現代主義思維中逸出，轉向關心「文化生產」的社會行動與實踐。著名如波依斯（Joseph Beuys），提出「社會雕塑」的觀念，以「能動的社會實踐」來取代美學樣式的靜態雕塑。時至今日，藝術家介入或關心社會的豐富多元表現，早已到了我們必須經常自問「藝術在那裡？」及「藝術的衝擊力為何？」的程度。[1] 誠如第十一屆藝術獎得主之一吳瑪俐所談及：「藝術成為『動詞』，是轉動社會的一種力量，創造力、思考力的一種展現。」[2] 

「誰需要藝術獎？」這是2013年藝術獎國際評審來台期間所舉辦一場座談會的題目。在這個提問的背後，明顯寓含著台新藝術獎，甚至包含作為一個機構的台新藝術基金會，對自我價值的反思與企圖提升的態度展現。與談者之一的鮑爾博士[3] 介紹了甫於2011年成立的跨國藝術獎項「能見獎/ 能見計畫」（The Visible Award/ Visible Project），以及歷史悠久的英國當代藝術獎項「泰納獎」（The Turner Prize）。同樣是對當代藝術的支持，不同的機構論題生產了全然不同的評選判準：鼓勵五十歲以下青年創作者的「泰納獎」，著重藝術風格的創新；而關心藝術的社會、文化向度的「能見獎」則傾向將高額的25,000 歐元獎金頒發給正在進行中的藝術／社會實踐計畫。除了獎金之外，「能見獎」更規劃了多元的學術研究與具生產性的平台，邀請受獎者參與對話或論壇，一方面升高受獎者及其藝術計劃的知名度，讓這些藝術計劃因更加「能見」，而獲致更高的社會實踐效能，而同時在獎項背後更重要的宗旨是，冀望「藝術將可能脫離自己的本位領域，成為其他事物能見的一部份」[4]。 

在新制「台新藝術獎大展」開幕前夕，我想有更多人好奇的是，新台新藝術獎究竟「新」在那裡？獎項未來的走向及其與台灣當代藝術創作生態的連結為何？第十二屆台新獎的五件得獎作品：劇場導演李銘宸作品《Dear All》、編舞家何曉玫與剪紙藝術家吳耿禎合作作品《親愛的》、音樂家林桂如與舞者董怡芬、聲音裝置藝術王仲堃共同創作《凱吉一歲》、以及兩件相對「獨立製作」的視覺類創作高俊宏作品《廢墟影像晶體計畫：十個場景》、蘇育賢的作品《花山牆》。僅僅的五件作品，形式光譜卻相對豐富多元，不僅涵括傳統分類觀點下的舞蹈、戲劇、音樂及所謂的「視覺類」藝術作品，而且每件作品都以充滿想像力的方式逸出既有藝術類型的領域框架，透過這些作品我們可清楚看見得獎藝術家或對藝術形式的表現性及可能性鍥而不捨的追尋和探索，或對政治、歷史、當代社會與文化議題的懇切關懷，進而身體的力行。也可以說，他們都某一程度地作到了讓「藝術」成為其他事物能見的一部分。 

除五件得獎作品，事實上，去年（2013）全年的提名名單中，包括十項的入圍作品，有許多創作都以「藝術的」形式直接正面對應許多當今台灣社會正迫切面臨的公共議題，例如：編舞家蕭紫菡的＜土地計畫 – 金磚上的遺民＞關懷被迫清除的華光社區居民、陳伯義的＜莫拉克＞結合了攝影與水利工程的田調行動等。另外還有集體藝術家參與公民反核行動的「核輻人」快閃行動；塗鴉客 Candy Bird的進入士林王家，以城市游擊的塗鴉行為，讓失職官僚、財團利益與失敗的土地正義承諾成為「能見」，也都在本屆台新獎的提名、入圍之列。[5] 而今年（2014）第十三屆第一季的提名中，更在台灣有史以來規模最大的學生運動席捲下，包括太陽花學運之中之學生佔領立法院運動；或象徵瓦解權力中心結構，兼自我心理療癒功能之音地大帝「大腸花」、「小腸花」都在提名列上[6]。引起網路上讚聲罵聲兩極言論齊飛──「這是不是藝術？」（Is this art?）的二分式質疑，與「這有可能 成為藝術嗎？」（Can this become art at all?）的開放式論點，持續交鋒。結果如何，我想沒有絕對的答案，但過程精采的多元思辨，已經讓新制藝術獎的意義獲得彰顯。  

「誰需要藝術獎？」同時具有自我提醒與反諷性質問的雙重意涵，而它的答案也在於獎項的整體規劃與宏觀企圖。積極面對這個提問的一個可能方向是，藝術獎除獎金挹注外還能做什麼？在許多值得持續想像與實驗的作法當中，我想至少有兩大方向可以思考。一、是機構與藝術家的關係：如何對應得獎藝術家的期望，與如何持續積蓄他們未來的發展與實踐計畫的能量；二、是機構與社會大眾的連結：如何更有想像力地規劃公眾的藝術教育、推廣與分享的模式。在過程中，我想透明的討論、開放的思維與態度是維繫台新藝術獎價值的必要基石，透過多元傳播管道，喚起群眾對當代藝術的關心與興趣，同時，藉由如ARTalks這類具創造性、對話性的研究平台，更具力量地加強台灣當代藝術創作者再各個領域的「能見」，增益他們所企圖實踐的社會藝術的力量，最終，藝術或許真能成為與社會溝通，並改變它的一股有效力量。

在新制台新藝術獎啟航之際，我衷心如此期待。 

Why Do We Need an Arts Award?

The Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture was established in the year 2000. 

Among the many corporate-funded arts and culture foundations inTaiwan, Taishin maintains the unique objective of supporting contemporary art works of innovation. After one year of consultation with experts and internal deliberation, the Foundation proposed as its core agenda an arts award that focuses on both visual and performing arts. Extensively speaking, the Taishin Arts Award has become the central imagery that facilitates the development of the Foundation as an institution. As modern creative trends take a turn, the Award must also evolve accordingly. In other words, when an institution makes it a core agenda to support contemporary arts with awards, the institution must inevitably possess the determination and competence for regular self-renewal. 

Thus, in 2011, as the Taishin Arts Award was about to reach its ten-year milestone, we began inspecting its implementation in the past decade on a comprehensive scale, while considering the possibility and necessity of its reform. In retrospection of the Award’s history, the major issue we faced was the re-presentation of the audiovisual and written materials accumulated over the years, spanning the fields of performing and visual arts; how might these materials be provided to a larger public; and moreover, how might we reveal the connection to and meaning of the materials in a contemporary context? In response to this issue, we completed the Taishin Arts Award Archive (A.A.A.) in 2012, a unique online platform that comprises an audiovisual database for 154 nominated or award-winning works, all open to public access. This digital archive is also a new form of a virtual, online exhibition, no longer in the traditional form of “retrospective exhibitions” centered on the artworks only. The 154 works were tagged with diverse keywords, incorporated with more than the elitist language commonly employed in art critiques, but also tagged with words from everyday life. Through the logic of the open search system on the internet, the independent works of art are able to be situated in a brand new context and thus develop imaginative relationships with other artworks, which would otherwise have been implausible with the current artistic rhetoric. 

In looking into the future, we launched the reforming of the Taishin Arts Award in 2013. The new scheme of the Award accommodates the following major objectives: 1. to facilitate the formation of a cross-disciplinary viewing, discussion, and selection mechanism; 2. to combine the observation and nomination systems, promote year-round independent nomination and review, and publish real-time commentary online to facilitate social networking and discourse; 3. to shift the selection criteria from expression of excellent creativity to the social sphere of art and its power of communication and inversion of the reality. It might also be said that, instead of pursuing the completeness and innovation of formal aesthetics, the Award now responds to the efforts of artists in attempting to define what else art can be. In as early as the 1960s, Western contemporary arts began harboring the thought of escaping from Modernism ideas likening art to aesthetic products, and inclining toward social actions and implementations that emphasize “cultural production.” 

The renowned conceptual artist, such as Joseph Beuys, proposed the concept of “social sculpture” to replace aesthetic, stationary sculptures with activities that shape the society. Today, artists express social concern and interference in such diverse ways, we are often asking ourselves “Where is art?” and “What is the impact?”[7] As WU Mali, one of the winners of the Eleventh Taishin Arts Award once said, “Art has become a word of action; it is an expression of a power, creativity and thought that activates the society.”[8] 

“Why Do We Need an Arts Award?” This question is the title of a seminar held in 2013 when international jurors of the Taishin Arts Award visited Taiwan. What underlies this question is clearly an expression of Taishin’s reflection on self value and ambition in self progress, as both an award and a foundation or institution. One of the discussants Dr. Ute Meta Bauer[9] introduced the Visible Award/Visible Project newly founded in 2011, as well as the long-established UK contemporary arts award, the Turner Prize. Common in their objectives to support contemporary art, definitions of different institutions have led to entirely different selection criteria. The Turner Prize is awarded to artists under the age of 50, and focuses on the innovation in artistic style. The Visible Award emphasizes the social and cultural aspects of art, and tends to support ongoing artistic/pro-active social projects with a monetary award of €25,000. Also, the Visible Award has designed a diversified, productive platform for academic research; by inviting winners to participate in dialogues or forums, the Award increases the publicity of winners and their artistic projects, making them more “visible” and therefore more efficient in their social contributions. It is an important mission of the Visible Award to seek art that “leaves its own field and becomes visible as part of something else.”[10] 

As the new Taishin Arts Award Exhibition commences, perhaps many will be curious as to how the new scheme differs from the old. What is the connection between the Award’s future development and Taiwan’s creative environment of contemporary arts? One may grasp a glance from the five short-listed winners of the Twelfth Award: Dear All by theater director LI Ming-Chen; My Dear, collaborative work of choreographer HO Hsiao-Mei and paper-cutting artist Jam WU; Dear John, created from concepts proposed by musician LIN Kuei-Ju and with co-efforts of choreographer TUNG I-Fen, sound and sound installation artist WANG Chung-Kun; as well as two visual arts creations of more “independent” outputs: the Ruin Image Crystal Project: 10 Scenes by KAO Jun-Honn and Hua-Shan-Qiang by SU Yu-Hsien. 

These five works comprise a diversity of forms, including the traditional categories of dance, theater, music and visual art works. Every work, in its own imaginative way, exudes outside the frameworks of conventional artistic categories, and through them it is evident how every artist attempts in ceaseless pursuit and exploration of artistic expression and potential; we can see their concern for political, historical, current social and cultural issues, as well as their involvement in taking action. In other words, they have all achieved the realm where art “becomes visible as part of something else.” 

Like the five winners, several nominated works throughout last year (2013) (including the ten finalists), have responded forthrightly through the form of art to the pressing public issues challenging current Taiwanese society. For example, The Land Project – Adherents of the Golden Bricks by choreographer XIAO Zi-Han expresses concern for residents of the Huaguang community demolished by force; CHEN Po-I’s Morakot – Solo Exhibition incorporates photography and field work in hydraulic engineering; groups of artists attended the Citizens Nonuke’s anti-nuclear “Nonuke Man” flash mob; the graffiti artist Candy Bird entered the demolished site of the Shihlin District WANG family premises, and used guerrilla-like graffiti to reveal the bureaucratic negligence, profiting of consortia and failure of land justice; all of which were included in the list of 2013 nomination and finalists.[11] Outbreak 

Furthermore, noting the extensive impact of the so-called Sunflower Student Movement in March this year, the first quarter nominees for the 13th Taishin Arts Award (2014) also comprise a number of activities surrounding this largest-scale social movement in Taiwanese history. The student occupation of the legislature during the Movement, as well as the Bowel Blossom and Intestine Flower Forums attempting to crumble the center of power and provide emotional release through profanity-laden speeches were among the nomination list.[12] Praise and denunciation in direct opposition of one another quickly filled the ARTalks online platform established for the Taishin Arts Award reform. Continually in debate are the binary questions “Is this art?” and the open discussion as to “Can this become art at all?” There is, I suppose, no absolute answer, but in the brilliant process of diverse reflection and critical thinking, the significance of the Award’s new system has become evident. 

“Why do we need an arts award?” is at once loaded with connotations of self admonition as well as self ridicule. Its answer lies in the overall plans and macroscopic aspirations of the Award. A possible way of responding to this question is to consider what an arts award can contribute to in addition to monetary support. I believe there are still many ways of contemplation and exploration, including at least two aspects. First, the relationship between the institution and artist: how to respond to the anticipation of award-winning artist and to his/her future plans of continual creative projects. Secondly, the connection between the institution and general public: how to enhance inventive public outreach and public education in order to increase the visibility of both the winning artists and the arts award itself. During much of this process, I believe transparent discussion and open-mindedness is the necessary cornerstone for maintaining the value of the Taishin Arts Award. Through diverse channels of communication, we hope to inspire public interest in and concern for contemporary arts, while via a research-based, discursive and productive platform such as ARTalks, we may more powerfully enhance the “visibility” of contemporary art works inTaiwan, and contribute to the social artistic power they aspire to realize. 

At the turning point of the new Taishin Arts Award, I humbly wish that art may eventually become a formidable force to enable social change and communication.

Artistic Director/ Lee Yulin, Ph.D.

Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture