Passion depicts the dizzying fall of a larger-than-life character into everyday life. The story takes place on an abandoned dock at sunset. Hal, an astronaut, suddenly appears on the dock where he meets three idle sailors hanging around. From then on, their lives intertwine while the dock is invaded by a feeling of desire. After an intense struggle, the sailors die in a pool of blood as the passion fades. The setting of Passion is inspired by Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s last film, Querelle, made in 1982. A representative figure of the new German cinema born at the end of the sixties, Fassbinder’s prolific career and his anti-aesthetic attitude reflect the rebellion against his time, its politics and artistic tendencies. In Passion, the artist uses and appropriates not only images from Fassbinder’s films, but also those from the films of the emblematic director of the French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard, as well as visual elements from the legendary fashion designer, Alexander McQueen,who died prematurely. The video simultaneously references sensual and physical passion, as well as the creative passion of an artist. When passion dissipates, so does the force that drives it. But what can make passion stop? It is something like Death, in which the physical body and the impulse of desire succumb to the external world, leaving nothing but emptiness and variegated imagination.
About the artist – Jun-Jieh Wang
Jun-Jieh Wang works and lives in Taipei. He obtained the national higher diploma for artistic expression at the Berlin Academy of Arts (HdK Berlin). Wang has been practicing video art since 1984 and is one of the pioneers of new media art in Taiwan. He is currently a professor of the Department of New Media at Taipei National University of the Arts. Wang received the Berlin Television Tower Award for his body of work in 1996. He has been invited to numerous international exhibitions, including the European Media Art Festival, the Shanghai Biennale at West Bund, the Ars Electronica in Linz, Triennale of Contemporary Asia-Pacific Art in Queensland, Triennale of Asian Art in Fukuoka, Viennese Secession Cities on the Move, Venice Biennale, Johannesburg Biennale and the Gwangju Biennale, etc.
curator Florent Basiletti
partners Taiwan Cultural Center in Paris, Ministry of Culture in Taiwan
L’Engagement
from July 1 to September 29, 2024
Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation
18 rue de la Calade
13200 Arles
