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Practicing Live features an ordinary family coming together to celebrate the father’s birthday. What makes this family special is each member’s employment within the art scene, which creates intersections between work and familial ties in even the most commonplace of conversations. All seven actors are professionals from the world of visual arts: the Director of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, a Japanese collector, his Taiwanese gallery director, an independent curator, an artist, an art critic, and an art academy professor all perform in the play. Each individual’s role overlaps with his or her real-life identity, which creates a tension that is injected into the play’s seemingly ordinary dialogue and uncovers long-hidden realities of working in the art world. Through the tensions between their real and fictional personae in their enactment of this family drama, the actors dismantle and reconstruct their relationships with each other. The director takes a look at the dynamics of the art world and the conditions of production that today’s young artists must face. Punning on the word “life,” Practicing Live is a live broadcast of a constantly rehearsed and practiced life.
Yu Cheng-Ta, born in 1983 in Tainan, Taiwan, holds a B.A. and an M.F.A from the Taipei National University of the Arts, Taiwan. He has participated in international exhibitions including: the 10th Shanghai Biennale (2014), Queens International (2013, New York), Asian Art Biennial (2013, Taichung), the 5th International Biennial of Media Art (2012, Melbourne), the 53rd Venice Biennale Taiwan Pavilion (2009), Biennial Cuvée 08 (2009, Linz) and the 6th Taipei Biennial (2008). He currently works and lives in Taipei, Taiwan.
Courtesy: The artist and Chi-Wen Gallery
Contact: chengta227@gmail.com, www.yuchengta.com
Format: 3-channel video installation
Running time: 31 min
