The Ethnographic Turn
In the text “Contemporary Art, Artist Envy and Its Danger,” GONG Jow-Jiun used the discussion triggered by “On Ethnographic Surrealism” (1981) as an example. The author James CLIFFORD (1945-), in his discussion about ethnography, art and literature, critiqued the limitations of anthropology, which was answered by the doubts of sociologist Pierre BOURDIEU (1930-2002), who argued that social relations were over-simplified in Clifford’s discussion. Anthropologist LIN Hsu-Ta specially titled an independent chapter “Artist as Ethnographer” in his book, Interpretative Anthropology—For the Exegesis across Ethnographic Reading and Writing, and stated that the methodological combination of contemporary art and field research has given art the meaning of “reconstructing local culture.” In another article, titled “Art in the Field—Field Research, Contemporary Artistic Creation and Anthropology?,” LIN pointed out that “local uniqueness with depth (and creativity) has been sustained through ethnographic field research in the production of art and avoided being rapidly integrated and contained by globalization.”
Since 2000, artists in Taiwan have demonstrated various types of field and ethnographic practices or focused on documenting or semi-fictionalizing specific groups, landscapes, events or cultural rituals to deal with the complicated relationships therein through self-reflexivity, vision as works and representational thinking, for instance, TU Wei-Cheng’s Bu-Nam Civilization Revealed, YAO Jui-Chung’s Mirage: Disused Public Property in Taiwan created in collaboration with “Lost Society Document,” as well as SU Yu-Hsien’s Hua-Shan-Qiang (花山牆). Among these projects, Hua-Shan-Qiang reverberated widely in the 12th Taishin Arts Award in 2014. The next year, curator and art critic GONG Jow-Jiun discussed “field” and “the ethnographic turn” in talking about the keywords listed by Artist magazine. Furthermore, in the Artist magazine’s feature issue “The Fieldwork of Artists” in 2019, GONG discussed LEE Jiun-Shyan’s Taiwan Project and incorporated the field journey entwined with the artist’s personal life experiences, calling such a method of art practice that closely related to artists’ life with names such as “fractal field,” “second-degree field” and “soft field”—“the fieldwork of contemporary art is itself a test to artistic attitude, height and duration. If one makes the mistake to conceptualize field research and instrumentalizes it in a shallow way, perhaps the real difficulty will eventually be the persistent test of life.”
The writing imbricated with the creative process also reflects the diversifications emerged in the ethnographic turn, including The Ruined Islands (2009) by YAO Jui-Chung, The Blue Skin: My Mother's Story (2013) by HUANG Po-Chih, and KAO Jun-Honn’s various works, including Multitude: Art Squats in East Asia, Fiction: The Taiwanese Japanese Trainee Soldier Chang Cheng-Kuang and I, and A Spinning Top: Art Creation and Life Spared. (Text/Li Kuei-Pi/2021)
References
Since 2000, artists in Taiwan have demonstrated various types of field and ethnographic practices or focused on documenting or semi-fictionalizing specific groups, landscapes, events or cultural rituals to deal with the complicated relationships therein through self-reflexivity, vision as works and representational thinking, for instance, TU Wei-Cheng’s Bu-Nam Civilization Revealed, YAO Jui-Chung’s Mirage: Disused Public Property in Taiwan created in collaboration with “Lost Society Document,” as well as SU Yu-Hsien’s Hua-Shan-Qiang (花山牆). Among these projects, Hua-Shan-Qiang reverberated widely in the 12th Taishin Arts Award in 2014. The next year, curator and art critic GONG Jow-Jiun discussed “field” and “the ethnographic turn” in talking about the keywords listed by Artist magazine. Furthermore, in the Artist magazine’s feature issue “The Fieldwork of Artists” in 2019, GONG discussed LEE Jiun-Shyan’s Taiwan Project and incorporated the field journey entwined with the artist’s personal life experiences, calling such a method of art practice that closely related to artists’ life with names such as “fractal field,” “second-degree field” and “soft field”—“the fieldwork of contemporary art is itself a test to artistic attitude, height and duration. If one makes the mistake to conceptualize field research and instrumentalizes it in a shallow way, perhaps the real difficulty will eventually be the persistent test of life.”
The writing imbricated with the creative process also reflects the diversifications emerged in the ethnographic turn, including The Ruined Islands (2009) by YAO Jui-Chung, The Blue Skin: My Mother's Story (2013) by HUANG Po-Chih, and KAO Jun-Honn’s various works, including Multitude: Art Squats in East Asia, Fiction: The Taiwanese Japanese Trainee Soldier Chang Cheng-Kuang and I, and A Spinning Top: Art Creation and Life Spared. (Text/Li Kuei-Pi/2021)
References
- GONG, Jow-Jiun. “Fractal Field, Second-degree Field, Soft Field—Revisiting the Idea of Artists as Ethnographers.” Artist, no. 531, August 2019, pp. 116-21.
- LIN, Hsu-Ta. “Art in the Field—Field Survey, Contemporary Artistic Creation and Anthropology?” Artist, no. 531, August 2019, pp. 122-27.
- LEE, Charles C. “It’s hard to say if it’s field. It’s simply life—An Interview with Artist Photographer Chen Po-I.” Artist, no. 531, August 2019, pp. 134-39.
- HSU, Chu-Chun. “The Bodily Exercise of Differences—Kuo Yu-Ping’s (Non-)Field and Self.” Artist, no. 531, August 2019, pp. 146-51.
- TSENG, Han-Sheng. “Reflexive Ethnography: Political Practice in Field and Representation.” Art Critique of Taiwan, no. 74, May 2018, pp. 40-8.
- WANG, Sheng-Hung. “How Does the Documentary Shift to or Return from the Fictional?—A Cross-sectional Observation of Contemporary Art in Taiwan in 2016.” Artist, no. 500, January 2017, pp. 154-7.
- GONG, Jow-Jiun. “Contemporary Art, Artist Envy and Its Danger.” Artist, no. 483, August 2015, pp. 138-43.
- CHIU, Yves Chun-Ta. “The ‘In-Situ’ Art Lost in the Field.” Art Critique of Taiwan, no. 62, April 2015, pp. 142-5.
- WANG, Sheng-Hung. “Field Research, A Preliminary Investigation into a Methodology of Contemporary Art Practice."
民族誌轉向（Ethnographic Turn）
在〈當代藝術，民族誌者羨妒及其危險〉一文中，作者龔卓軍以〈論民族誌超現實主義〉（On Ethnographic Surrealism，1981）一文所引起的討論作為例子，該文作者詹姆士‧克里夫（James Clifford，1945-）在民族誌、藝術與文學的討論中展開對於人類學限制的批評，同時也引起了社會學家布迪厄（Pierre Bourdieu，1930-2002）的疑慮，認為在這之中的社會關係被過度簡化。人類學家林徐達的著作《詮釋人類學：民族誌閱讀與書寫的交互評註》（2015）裡，特別將〈藝術家作為民族誌者〉獨立為章節名稱。他認為，當代藝術中與田野調查的方法結合，同時賦予了藝術「在地文化的重構」的意義，在另外一篇文章〈藝術，在田野之中—田野調查、當代藝術創作，與人類學？〉中，他指出「[……]藝術生產過程中透過民族誌式田野調查方式，維持具深度（與創意）的在地獨特性，同時得以避免過於快速受到全球化整合與收編的結果[……]」。
臺灣自2000年肇始，藝術家們便有不同類型的田野及民族誌實踐方式，或經由特定族群、地景、事件或文化儀式的關注，以記錄留存或半虛構的方式，透過自我反身性、視覺作品化與再現性思維處理當中複雜的關係，如：涂維政的《卜湳文明遺跡》、姚瑞中與「LSD失落社會檔案室」合作的「海市蜃樓」蚊子館踏查計畫、以及蘇育賢的《花山牆》等。《花山牆》在2014年第十二屆台新獎時引起廣泛的迴響，隔年，策展人與藝評人龔卓軍在《藝術家》雜誌的關鍵字討論中，提出「田野」與「民族誌轉向」的討論，並且在2019年《藝術家》雜誌的專題「藝術家的田野技藝」裡，藉由李俊賢的「台灣計畫」，將與藝術家個人生命經歷緊密結合的田野歷程納入，以「碎形田野」、「二度田野」、「軟性田野」的稱呼來形容發生在當代藝術中，與創作者生命緊密關聯的實踐方法，「[……]當代藝術的田野技藝，本身就是一種藝術態度、高度與長度的考驗，若誤把田野調查概念化，進行工具化的淺薄操作，或許真正難耐的是：生命的長考。」
與創作過程緊密結合的書寫，也反映了民族誌轉向中的多樣化面貌，如：姚瑞中的《廢島：台灣離島廢墟浪遊》（2009）、黃博志《藍色皮膚：老媽的故事》（2013）、高俊宏的《諸眾：東亞藝術佔領行動》、《小說：台灣籍日本兵張正光與我》、《陀螺：創作與讓生》等。
參考文獻
臺灣自2000年肇始，藝術家們便有不同類型的田野及民族誌實踐方式，或經由特定族群、地景、事件或文化儀式的關注，以記錄留存或半虛構的方式，透過自我反身性、視覺作品化與再現性思維處理當中複雜的關係，如：涂維政的《卜湳文明遺跡》、姚瑞中與「LSD失落社會檔案室」合作的「海市蜃樓」蚊子館踏查計畫、以及蘇育賢的《花山牆》等。《花山牆》在2014年第十二屆台新獎時引起廣泛的迴響，隔年，策展人與藝評人龔卓軍在《藝術家》雜誌的關鍵字討論中，提出「田野」與「民族誌轉向」的討論，並且在2019年《藝術家》雜誌的專題「藝術家的田野技藝」裡，藉由李俊賢的「台灣計畫」，將與藝術家個人生命經歷緊密結合的田野歷程納入，以「碎形田野」、「二度田野」、「軟性田野」的稱呼來形容發生在當代藝術中，與創作者生命緊密關聯的實踐方法，「[……]當代藝術的田野技藝，本身就是一種藝術態度、高度與長度的考驗，若誤把田野調查概念化，進行工具化的淺薄操作，或許真正難耐的是：生命的長考。」
與創作過程緊密結合的書寫，也反映了民族誌轉向中的多樣化面貌，如：姚瑞中的《廢島：台灣離島廢墟浪遊》（2009）、黃博志《藍色皮膚：老媽的故事》（2013）、高俊宏的《諸眾：東亞藝術佔領行動》、《小說：台灣籍日本兵張正光與我》、《陀螺：創作與讓生》等。
參考文獻
- 龔卓軍，〈 碎形田野．二度田野．軟性田野--再論藝術家做為民族誌者 〉，藝術家，531期，頁116-121，2019.8。
- 林徐達，〈 藝術，在田野之中--田野調查、當代藝術創作，與人類學 〉，藝術家，531期，頁122-127，2019.8。
- 李橋河，〈 很難說是不是田野，那就是生活--專訪攝影藝術家陳伯義 〉，藝術家，531期，頁134-139，2019.8。
- 許楚君，〈 遁入差異的身體練習--郭俞平的(非)田野與自身〉，藝術家，531期，頁146-151，2019.8。
- 曾涵生，〈 反身民族誌：田野與再現中的政治實踐〉，藝術觀點，74期，頁40-48，2018.5。
- 王聖閎，〈 紀實如何轉向虛構，或再復返？--2016年臺灣當代藝術的一個切面觀察〉，藝術家，500期，頁154-157，2017.1。
- 龔卓軍，〈 當代藝術，民族誌者羨妒及其危險 〉，藝術家，483期，頁138-143，2015.8。
- 邱俊達，〈 面對田野失落的「場造藝術」代藝術，民族誌者羨妒及其危險 〉，藝術觀點，62期，頁142-145，2015.4。
- 王聖閎，〈 田野調查，一個當代藝術實踐方法論的初步探問〉