By Lin Yujie, Translated by Hu Yuduo

“The Real Counterfeit- Jiao Xingtao’s Solo Exhibition” will be held in Taipei Huashan 1914 from May 3 to August 24, 2014. This exhibition is undoubtedly the most topical, targeted, speculative and interactively appreciative sculpture exhibition. The theme of the exhibition can associate with topic of life and aesthetics, reality and illusion; can lead different levels and mechanisms from identification, discovery to in-depth reading to digest what can be seen.

Some symbolic elements are displayed on the exhibition, such as wood ladder, trash can, children''''''''''''''''s inflatable toys and even the tricycles on the streets of Chongqing downtown. These seemingly ordinary objects actually have the ability to disturb viewers’ imagination and understanding of existing things’ materials, indeed, the seemingly alike things have different materials. Jiao Xingtao raises a series of questions: which is the real art work between the ready-made objects and the hand-made objects; he also restored the factory space of Huashan where the function has been redefined. But in fact, the restored place in order to pursue the original state of the work place actually becomes an art scene itself.

From the concept of exhibitions’ point of view, the realism artists regard the skill to realistically mimic the existent things as the highest level, but what Jiao Xingtao chooses is the opposite way. Firstly, he pre-made a fake wooden box and wooden ladder, then searched for an excellent wooden craftsman, meanwhile utilizing the real woods to copy the artist''s original counterfeit, this is like a game between the artist and craftsman, and it subverts the real and fake, the copy and plagiarism. It also satirizes that many contemporary artists replace crafts skills with proxy to produce, and the works after the creation of factory often present weird tastes. Back to the exhibition, the choice is given to the audience to judge the relation between the real and the fake. For the audience, the relation between them, just as the ancient dialectical relation between “chicken and egg”-which one comes first, is continuing to challenge us.

Organizer: Taipei Huashan 1914, Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art

Exhibition Time: May 3, 2014-Aug 24, 2014