MAPPING TAIWAN: ACTIVISM IN THE WORK OF WU MALI – TAASA Review March 2018

Natalie Seiz N ot all contemporary art is produced for eventual museum or gallery exhibition, or is dictated by market value.

But can this art, deemed to be outside the mainstream, then be considered legitimate – theorised and examined art historically? One problem is defining where this type of ‘art’ starts, ends or exists, particularly when the complexities of ‘community’ or ‘public’ participation in a work shifts traditional rules of viewing.

Suzanne Lacy makes reference to a ‘new genre public art’ (which includes ‘activist’ art): ‘The inclusion of the public connects theories of art to the broader population: what exists in the space between the words public and art is an unknown relationship between artist and audience, a relationship that may itself become the artwork’ (Lacy1995: 20)...