{"id":6499,"date":"2025-10-22T12:50:42","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T04:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/?page_id=6499"},"modified":"2026-06-02T20:23:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T12:23:06","slug":"comment-the-condensed-cinema","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/comment-the-condensed-cinema\/","title":{"rendered":"Comment-The condensed cinema"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The condensed cinema of
Hsieh Chun -Te<\/b><\/h2> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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English<\/a><\/em><\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n

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French<\/a><\/em><\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n

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English<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The condensed cinema of Hsieh Chun -Te

<\/b><\/h4>\n

There is an expression in French, \u201cavoir de la suite dans les id\u00e9es,\u201d which is used to describe fidelity to one\u2019s ideas, a grounding in inaugural positions whose secret, personal motivations are then enriched, redeployed and redistributed along the way.<\/p>\n

Ever since the 1960s Hsieh Chun-Te has been constructing his universe with unfailing assurance and constancy. Some of his key motifs originated in those years. Which is not to say that making the later work, including the most recent series, TENKY, has been calm, smooth sailing. Calm is not what distinguishes Hsieh\u2019s work from that of other contemporary artists. That said, \u201cluxury and pleasure,\u201d to take the two other terms from the famous title by Henri Matisse (luxe, calme et volupt\u00e9<\/i>), have often featured in the work of this Taiwanese artist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A superficial approach to this work might place it within an international tendency bringing together such artists as Gilbert and George, Jo\u00ebl-Peter Witkin, Pierre & Gilles and David LaChapelle: in other words, a tendency that uses the photographic medium to create installations in which magnified or manipulated bodies are set in landscapes whose artificial lighting blurs the frontiers between the truth of nature and the artifice of the studio. But that would be to make a mistake about Hsieh\u2019s world and visual project. The retrospective approach recently initiated by the artist, allowing us to rediscover his works from the 1960s, gives a better idea of its specificity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Right from the start, Hsieh\u2019s exceptional palette was black and white. What will impress us today, ideally, will not be just the infinite modulation of greys, something most twentieth-century masters of photography also aimed to achieve. No, Hsieh\u2019s obsessions lie elsewhere. They are embodied, more particularly, in the conflicts between focus<\/i> and the diffraction of light, between the sharp<\/i> and the blurred, between the clarity of the contours and the grain of the prints. The artist\u2019s other obsession lies in the conflict between forms of matter: marshes and epidermises, the accumulation of stones and capillary streams, the amorphous fragility of bodies and sculpted power of machines.<\/p>\n

The images we are seeing today, most of them made in the late 1960s, could be interpreted as fragments of life captured in the urgency of encounters accompanied by the accidents due to precipitousness. In fact, these images already express Hsieh\u2019s simultaneously symbolist<\/i> and abstract ambition.<\/p>\n

Note: symbolist<\/i> and not symbolic. There is a subtle distinction between the late nineteenth-century movement in painting and poetry, Symbolism, from the attempt to bestow a secondary meaning on the organisation of forms. There is, indeed, an undeniable symbolism in Hsieh\u2019s work, and especially recently. From Gustave Dor\u00e9 to Burne Jones, from Alfred Kubin to William Blake, we can discern the influence in the way the bodies are placed and in their confrontation with nature, all being part of a lyrical poetry which is ultimately concerned with conflict between tellurian and celestial forces. Most of all, though, these images which inaugurated Hsieh\u2019s work manifest a torment of abstraction. Image 01 is an extreme close-up on a body which fills almost all the space. As ever, there is a troubling eroticism in Hsieh\u2019s vision. Here, the framing suggests that the woman\u2019s dress is billowing up outside the frame. The close-up depraves<\/i> the forms of the body and, upon close observation, there is utter uncertainty as to whether this figure is truly a human or just a doll, a living being or a lifeless dummy. Furthermore, the photo is backlit, and the bright light coming through the window \u201cburns\u201d the outlines of the exhibited body. Like a vampire, this mysterious silhouette seems to be eaten up by the light, disintegrating into an incandescent powder. That is why I feel I can speak here of Hsieh\u2019s \u201cabstract torment\u201d: the disappearance of figures, and a kind of terror of light, which are later developed to an apocalyptic degree in the Tenky<\/i> series.<\/p>\n

Photo 02 uses and abuses light. No doubt it is the same window through which the fire passes here. But the interplay between appearance and disappearance in the previous image is acted out in this instance by the body reclining in the light, its nudity carefully hidden\/revealed by the artist. This body on which the black of an uncertain garment (rubber or leather?) opposes the white of the skin (the dazzling complexion of the buttocks), replays within the image the contrast between light and shadow which geometrically structures the space and references the medium itself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Image 06 is even more audacious. I mentioned earlier the coexistence of the human body and the machine. This image is one of the finest examples of this relationship which evokes a vision pertinent to both Taiwan and the big city of Taipei traversed by waves of motorbikes and scooters. Hsieh\u2019s image is interesting because the image it conveys is one of immobility. What we see is clearly a garage, with the machines at rest. It is their shine and shape that the artist wants to bring to our attention: hence the close-up on the right of the coachwork of one of these machines. In addition to this, however, a young girl who could otherwise be bestriding one of these engines is lying on the floor, between them. And this languorous abandon creates an equivalence between the mechanical and the human orders. Image 04 provides comparable reasons for surprise. On a waste ground \u2013 the French term terrain vague<\/i> conveys its imprecise urban status and formlessness, its atmosphere of disquiet and expectancy \u2013\u00a0the remains of a car occupy the centre of the image. In the opening previously filled by the window of a door now reduced to paltry remains, a human body has been thrust\u00a0\u2013 all we can see are the legs sticking up skywards. What are we to think? Has the body fallen from a great height? Fallen from another vehicle, as suggested by the aeroplane taking off in the background? Hsieh\u2019s approach here is probably meant to be humorous. But it is no doubt more gravely pessimistic if we consider the equivalence between the piece of scrap and the equally ruined body sticking out of it, which appears to have met its fate at the same time as the vehicle in which it remains imprisoned. In addition, might this be a way for the artist to evoke the coming fate of those who are flying in that distant jet? Or is the artist making another suggestion? Are the modern city seen to the left of the image and the people who live there both headed for the fate of the enigmatic composition in the centre of the image? Or, finally, is the central motif the metaphor for this city in the background? Here the image\u2019s symbolist ambition cannot be separated from its symbolic intent. This picture comes some twenty years before the Raw<\/i> series, and yet it could easily be part of it. Like that series, image 04 was made on the basis of a strategy of a twofold delay or wait This strategy lies at the heart of Hsieh\u2019s aesthetic, well beyond the RAW series, and still constitutes a founding principle in the recent works.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The first wait is the one that corresponds to the time of making the photo as such, the exposure time needed to imprint the scene on the film. This variable exposure time depends on the quality of light. But we may assume that the quality of the images and the final form they take on the gallery or museum walls will have been taken to justify the attentive adjustments made during the production process.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The second wait is for \u201cthe right moment\u201d to capture the scene. This is not the \u201cdecisive moment,\u201d to use the term from French humanist photography. It is a \u201cgood moment,\u201d a moment that has been waited and hoped for and, of course, prepared and programmed. In the photograph here, it was necessary that the aeroplane cross the image for a fraction of a second<\/b>. The artist had to wait in order to capture this ensemble. The actor in the image, whose legs are all we see, had to wait in that uncomfortable and acrobatic position. Another thing the artist and actor had to wait for was for the sun to be so positioned that the shadow of the two legs was visible \u201cin the right place.\u201d We know that Hsieh does not manipulate his images. He stages them, composes them like a painter, but he does rehearse<\/i> them, and does not always succeed. He makes them subtly, like a film director. And although that body \u201cthrown on the scrap heap\u201d signifies an undeniable pessimism and a despair that bodes only ill for the future of humanity, the very making of this image, on the contrary, betrays a paradoxical optimism as to the possibility of its success. The artist\u2019s attentive patience has allowed a successful balance between objects placed seemingly by chance in an unlikely place, bodies that pose<\/i>, and a fleeting event. The image is thus complex beyond its immediate, burlesque effect of surprise. This is a complexity of both production and conception.<\/p>\n

Among the images from the past, two textural pieces stand out. Image 05 represents a kind of swamp or, more exactly, a landscape of dunes covered with the kind of vegetation that grows on river estuaries. The solar star is still there and it consumes part of the horizon. A first third of the image is darkened by the plants that grow in floodable areas. Then, in the middle plane, sandy ground that is marbled or flecked like a carpet on which walks a figure of whom we see only the immaculately white back, and whose hair seems to merge with the foliage on the ground. This unexpected metamorphosis resulting from the decapitation of the figure moving towards the centre of the image bestows a strange status on the body, as un unidentified object which reveals, by contagion, the general tendency of the representation of landscape towards abstraction. There is nothing \u201cdocumentary\u201d about Hsieh\u2019s vision. Like the vanity that Blaise Pascale condemned in painting, one could justifiably designate comparable consequences in Hsieh\u2019s photographic tableaus. But the word vanity could also be used with another meaning, again taken from the field of painting: Hsieh Chun-Te\u2019s photographic tableaus encourage us to meditate on the instability of signs and forms that specify humanity. The Taiwanese artist, eyewitness on an island that for many years has felt an anxious political precariousness in the face of the immense nearby land from which it has separated, and from which it protects itself, has real legitimacy when it comes to expressing the ephemeral fate of all humanity, and he does so with genuine metaphysical ambition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Figure 07 is even more impressive in terms of the clash of materials. The chaos of stones is represented in such a way as to seem without limits, extending beyond the frame, in an all-over approach which creates a tellurian darkness in the image. At the top of one of the biggest rocks is a face extended by slender shoulders. Reminiscent of M\u00e9lisande\u2019s fountain-like locks, the hair comes down to the lower edge of the image. The picture could be seen as a reverse version of Botticelli\u2019s Birth of Venus<\/i>. The whiteness of the epidermis, the frozen, gaping eyes, the neglected hair, without a trace of wind, all suggest death rather than birth, doubt about the endurance of the human rather than reborn confidence.<\/p>\n

But the disquiet exuded by this image, with its admirable movement of lines and modulated greys comparable to the drawings and washes of ancient China, is counterbalanced by the formal boldness and, once again, the message. This image may trouble and frighten because of the ghostly appearance that has neither consistency nor volume. Nevertheless, it is the brightness of this face which engenders an undeniably hypnotic effect on the beholder.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have no hesitation in arguing that this work by Hsieh Chun-Te is one of his most disturbing icons, one that I would link and at the same time contrast with the incredible, absolutely antagonistic image 03. Just as structured as the preceding images, structured in two parts separated by the zigzag of the parapet of a bridge, a female form melts into the movement of the light. The distant city, carried away in the narcissistic brightness of the lights of consumption, seems to threaten to swallow up this moving body in order to escape hell. It irresistibly reminds me of the Tenky<\/i> series in which flaming nature threatens an Eve who has been expelled from a scrubby, stony paradise. It is likely that the artist\u2019s return to what could be considered \u201cyouthful works\u201d has revealed or even confirmed that his whole body of work is marked by the fundamental threat of the destruction of life by combustion. And the use of colour in the recent works has not diminished the apocalyptic torment of an artist from whom the disasters of progress and indifference to the natural fate of the world are to a large extent what drives his passion in composing images. Might we posit that colour serves this incendiary terror even more effectively?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To conclude this look back over works that are nearly half a century old, I would like to emphasise the remarkable constancy of Hsieh\u2019s method. Well before artist\u2019s photography became dominant on museum and gallery walls, I note with great surprise that Hsieh was already conceiving of the photographic act as essentially an act of staging.<\/p>\n

But then, should we really consider this work as belonging to the trend of artist\u2019s photography? No doubt we need to find another term than the French photographie plasticienne<\/i>, one that, in avoiding reference to the tableau vivant<\/i>, would designate an undertaking somewhere between photography and cinema. It is not a matter of comparing results. Hsieh\u2019s large-scale photographic compositions make no attempt to hide their immobile performance and their dynamic disquiet. They are far from the world of cinema. However, a few images might bring back memories of the films of Nagisa Oshima, for example, or, to take a less \u201cclassical\u201d filmmaker, Fruit Chan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The point here is similarity of mise-en-sc\u00e8ne<\/i>. Each of Hsieh\u2019s photographs \u2013 and this is a method that he began to apply as early as the 1960s \u2013 is the final step in a slow process and a long preparation that comprises finding locations, rehearsing with the \u201cactors,\u201d making anticipatory sketches, designing special costumes and many other preparatory actions that will obtain what one could think of as a film condensed<\/i> into a single photograph, or the equivalent of a single frame \u2013 but with nothing before or after. What distinguishes Hsieh\u2019s highly constructed images from the images of other contemporary artists is the multiplicity of visual approaches within each image. These destabilise the representation and express the complexity of its making. I am referring here, among many other aspects, to the oppositions in the textures of the image.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking back today, I can think of only one artist working in the medium of photography who combines documentary ambition with poetic lyricism: Jeff Wall. Notwithstanding the considerable distance between them, a distance that is more than just the geographical distance between Vancouver and Taipei, these two artists accord an importance to their photographic staging proportionate to the weight of contemporary issues, and do so at a time when nothing is easier than making images. But what<\/i> images? Of course, many artists take time in their studio to painstakingly build up the compositions in their photos. But in most cases, sadly, the result is just a kitsch backdrop. No doubt, then, it is long before the shot can be taken that an artist like Hsieh, almost forgetting the decisive moment of shutter release, reflects on<\/i> the world\u2019s besetting ills.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n

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French<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
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Le cin\u00e9ma condens\u00e9 de Hsieh Chun-Te<\/h4>\n

Dominque Pa\u00efni \ufe31 Critique, Essayiste, Professeur \u00e0 l\u2019Ecole du Louvre

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Dans la langue fran\u00e7aise l\u2019expression \u00ab\u00a0avoir de la suite dans les id\u00e9es\u00a0\u00bb d\u00e9signe la fid\u00e9lit\u00e9 \u00e0 soi-m\u00eame, l\u2019enracinement dans des partis pris inauguraux dont la vie se charge d\u2019enrichir, de d\u00e9ployer et de redistribuer autrement les motivations secr\u00e8tes et intimes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

D\u00e8s les ann\u00e9es 60, Hsieh Chun-Te construit son univers avec une assurance et une permanence r\u00e9guli\u00e8res. Une part essentielle de ses motifs s\u2019origine depuis ces ann\u00e9es. Cela ne veut pas dire que l\u2019\u0153uvre ult\u00e9rieure jusqu\u2019\u00e0 la r\u00e9cente derni\u00e8re s\u00e9rie TENKY, ait \u00e9t\u00e9 engendr\u00e9e dans le calme\u2026 Le calme n\u2019est pas le trait qui distingue l\u2019\u0153uvre de Hsieh par rapport aux plasticiens contemporains. En revanche, selon le titre fameux d\u2019Henri Matisse, \u00ab\u00a0le luxe et la volupt\u00e9\u00a0\u00bb furent souvent au rendez-vous de l\u2019artiste ta\u00efwanais.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Une approche superficielle de l\u2019\u0153uvre pourrait la faire appartenir \u00e0 un courant international qui m\u00ealerait des artistes qui vont de Guilbert and George, Jo\u00ebl-Peter Witkin, Pierre et Gilles ou David de la Chapelle\u2026 Autrement dit, un courant qui utilise le m\u00e9dium photographique pour figer des installations qui m\u00ealent des corps magnifi\u00e9s et\/ou maltrait\u00e9s dans des paysages dont les \u00e9clairages artificiels rendent indistinctes les fronti\u00e8res entre la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de la nature et l\u2019artifice du studio. Ce serait en effet se tromper sur l\u2019univers et le projet plastiques de Hsieh. L\u2019initiative r\u00e9trospective de l\u2019artiste qui consiste \u00e0 faire red\u00e9couvrir aujourd\u2019hui des travaux des ann\u00e9es 60 permet de percevoir mieux encore sa sp\u00e9cificit\u00e9.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

D\u2019embl\u00e9e le noir et blanc fut l\u2019exceptionnelle palette de Hsieh. Id\u00e9alement, ce n\u2019est pas seulement l\u2019infinie modulation des gris qui impressionne aujourd\u2019hui et ce dont la plupart des ma\u00eetres de la photographie au XXe si\u00e8cle se partag\u00e8rent la vocation. Les obsessions de Hsieh sont ailleurs. Elles s\u2019incarnent plus particuli\u00e8rement dans les conflits entre le point<\/i> et la diffraction lumineuse, entre le piqu\u00e9 <\/i>et le flou, entre la nettet\u00e9 des contours et le grain des tirages. L\u2019autre obsession de l\u2019artiste r\u00e9side dans les conflits de mati\u00e8res\u00a0: mar\u00e9cages et \u00e9pidermes, accumulation des pierres et ruisseaux capillaires, fragilit\u00e9 informe des corps et puissance sculpt\u00e9e des machines\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Les images que l\u2019on d\u00e9couvre aujourd\u2019hui, r\u00e9alis\u00e9es pour l\u2019essentiel \u00e0 la fin des ann\u00e9es 60, pourraient \u00eatre interpr\u00e9t\u00e9es comme des \u00e9clats de vie saisis dans l\u2019urgence des rencontres accompagn\u00e9 des accidents de la pr\u00e9cipitation. En fait, ces images traduisent d\u00e9j\u00e0 l\u2019ambition \u00e0 la fois symboliste <\/i>et abstraite de Hsieh.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

J\u2019insiste sur le mot symboliste<\/i> et non pas la symbolique. La langue fran\u00e7aise distingue subtilement le courant pictural et po\u00e9tique de la fin du XIXe si\u00e8cle de l\u2019ambition de conf\u00e9rer un message second \u00e0 l\u2019organisation des formes. Il y a en effet un incontestable symbolisme dans l\u2019\u0153uvre de Hsieh et plus particuli\u00e8rement dans l\u2019\u0153uvre r\u00e9cente. De Gustave Dor\u00e9 \u00e0 Burne Jones, d\u2019Alfred Kubin \u00e0 William Blake, on peut rep\u00e9rer une influence dans l\u2019installation des corps et leur affrontement avec la nature participant d\u2019une po\u00e9sie lyrique dont l\u2019enjeu final est le conflit de forces telluriques et de forces c\u00e9lestes. Mais ces images qui ouvrent l\u2019\u0153uvre de Hsieh manifestent surtout un tourment de l\u2019abstraction. L\u2019image 01\u00a0 <\/span>est un gros plan excessif sur un corps qui obstrue la quasi totalit\u00e9 de l\u2019espace. Il y a comme toujours un troublant \u00e9rotisme dans la vision de Hsieh. Ici, le cadrage sugg\u00e8re que la robe du personnage f\u00e9minin est soulev\u00e9e hors-champ\u2026 Le gros plan d\u00e9prave <\/i>les formes du corps et au terme d\u2019une observation attentive, l\u2019incertitude est absolue quant \u00e0 savoir si le personnage fut v\u00e9ritablement un humain ou une poup\u00e9e, un \u00eatre vivant ou un mannequin inanim\u00e9. En outre, le clich\u00e9 est pris en contre-jour et une vive lumi\u00e8re traversant une fen\u00eatre br\u00fble les contours du corps expos\u00e9. Tel un vampire cette myst\u00e9rieuse silhouette para\u00eet se consumer dans la lumi\u00e8re et se fondre en une poussi\u00e8re incandescente. C\u2019est ce qui m\u2019autorise \u00e0 parler d\u2019un tourment abstrait de Hsieh\u00a0: disparition des figures et une certaine terreur \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9gard de la lumi\u00e8re dont on retrouvera plus tard les d\u00e9veloppements apocalyptiques dans la s\u00e9rie Tenky<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

La photo 02 use et abuse de la lumi\u00e8re. Probablement, la m\u00eame fen\u00eatre est emprunt\u00e9e pour laisser passer son feu. Mais le jeu entre apparition et disparition dans la pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente image se r\u00e9alise ici par ce corps allong\u00e9 sous la lumi\u00e8re dont l\u2019artiste a eu soin de r\u00e9v\u00e9ler\/cacher la nudit\u00e9. Ce corps sur lequel s\u2019opposent le noir d\u2019un v\u00eatement ambigu (caoutchouc ou cuir) et le blanc de l\u2019\u00e9piderme (\u00e9blouissante carnation des fesses), r\u00e9p\u00e8te dans l\u2019image m\u00eame le contraste entre ombre et lumi\u00e8re qui structure l\u2019espace de mani\u00e8re g\u00e9om\u00e9trique et renvoie au m\u00e9dium lui-m\u00eame.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

L\u2019image 6 est plus audacieuse encore. J\u2019\u00e9voquais plus haut la coexistence du corps humain et de la machine. Cette image est un des beaux exemples de cette relation qui renvoie \u00e0 une vision commune \u00e0 Taiwan et \u00e0 la grande ville de Taipei travers\u00e9e par les vagues de motos et de scooters. Mais l\u2019image compos\u00e9e par Hsieh est intrigante car l\u2019effet qui s\u2019impose est l\u2019immobilit\u00e9. Il s\u2019agit manifestement d\u2019un garage, les machines y sont au repos et ce sont ces derni\u00e8res dont l\u2019artiste veut nous r\u00e9v\u00e9ler l\u2019\u00e9clat et les contours en imposant en gros plan \u00e0 droite la carrosserie d\u2019une de ces machines. Mais, de surcro\u00eet, la jeune fille qui pourrait chevaucher l\u2019une d\u2019entre elles, est allong\u00e9e au sol, au milieu d\u2019elles. Et ce langoureux abandon cr\u00e9e une \u00e9quivalence entre l\u2019ordre machinique et l\u2019ordre humain. C\u2019est pour de comparables raisons que nous pouvons \u00eatre stup\u00e9faits pas l\u2019image 04\u00a0: dans un terrain dont le qualificatif fran\u00e7ais \u00ab\u00a0vague\u00a0\u00bb d\u00e9signe bien le statut urbain non pr\u00e9cis\u00e9 et l\u2019apparence informe, l\u2019inqui\u00e9tude et l\u2019attente de destination, un reste de carlingue d\u2019automobile g\u00eet au centre de l\u2019image. Dans l\u2019ouverture, jadis occup\u00e9e par une vitre d\u2019une porti\u00e8re devenue d\u00e9risoire, plonge un corps humain dont on ne per\u00e7oit que les jambes dress\u00e9es vers le ciel. Que penser? Ce corps serait-il tomb\u00e9 de haut\u2026 Tomb\u00e9 d\u2019un autre v\u00e9hicule comme le sugg\u00e8re l\u2019avion qui d\u00e9colle au fond de l\u2019image\u00a0? Le parti pris de Hsieh se veut ici probablement humoristique. Il est sans doute plus gravement pessimiste si on consid\u00e8re l\u2019\u00e9quivalence entre cette ferraille en ruine d\u2019o\u00f9 jaillit un corps tout autant en ruine et qui para\u00eet avoir connu son sort fatal en m\u00eame temps que l\u2019habitacle dont il est encore prisonnier. En outre, est-ce une mani\u00e8re pour l\u2019artiste d\u2019\u00e9voquer le sort \u00e0 venir de ceux qui s\u2019envolent dans le jet du fond de l\u2019image\u00a0? Ou est-ce encore une autre suggestion que l\u2019artiste \u00e9met\u00a0: la cit\u00e9 moderne qui appara\u00eet \u00e0 gauche de l\u2019image et ceux qui l\u2019habitent sont-ils\u00a0 <\/span>promis au devenir de l\u2019\u00e9nigmatique composition du centre de l\u2019image\u00a0? Ou, enfin, le motif central est-il la m\u00e9taphore de cette ville en fond d\u2019image\u00a0? On ne peut dissocier ici l\u2019ambition symboliste de l\u2019image et sa volont\u00e9 symbolique. Cette image pr\u00e9c\u00e8de d\u2019une vingtaine d\u2019ann\u00e9e la s\u00e9rie Raw<\/i>. Pourtant elle pourrait \u00e0 bon droit en faire partie. Comme cette s\u00e9rie, l\u2019image 4 a \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9alis\u00e9e depuis une double strat\u00e9gie d\u2019attente. Cette strat\u00e9gie est au c\u0153ur de l\u2019esth\u00e9tique de Hsieh, bien au-del\u00e0 de la s\u00e9rie RAW et constitue toujours un principe fondateur dans les \u0153uvres r\u00e9centes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

La premi\u00e8re attente est celle qui correspond au temps de r\u00e9alisation proprement dite du clich\u00e9, temps d\u2019exposition de la sc\u00e8ne \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re pour l\u2019enregistrement sur la pellicule. Selon le contexte lumineux, ce temps d\u2019exposition varie. Mais on peut supposer que la qualit\u00e9 des images et leur format d\u00e9finitif aux murs d\u2019une galerie ou d\u2019un mus\u00e9e a justifi\u00e9 d\u2019attentifs r\u00e9glages lors de la r\u00e9alisation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

La seconde attente est celle du \u00ab\u00a0bon moment\u00a0\u00bb o\u00f9 la sc\u00e8ne peut \u00eatre saisie. Il ne s\u2019agit pas d\u2019un \u00ab\u00a0instant d\u00e9cisif\u00a0\u00bb pour reprendre l\u2019expression de la photographie humaniste fran\u00e7aise. C\u2019est un \u00ab\u00a0bon moment\u00a0\u00bb attendu, esp\u00e9r\u00e9, et bien entendu pr\u00e9par\u00e9, programm\u00e9. Dans la photographie pr\u00e9sente, il faut que cet avion soit durant une fraction de seconde l\u00e0, o\u00f9 et comme il appara\u00eet\u2026 L\u2019artiste d\u00fb attendre pour saisir cet ensemble. L\u2019acteur de l\u2019image dont on ne per\u00e7oit que les jambes d\u00fb attendre \u00e9galement dans cette position inconfortable et acrobatique. L\u2019artiste et l\u2019interpr\u00e8te durent attendre que le soleil soit lui aussi au rendez-vous pour que l\u2019ombre des deux jambes s\u2019affiche au \u00ab\u00a0bon endroit\u00a0\u00bb\u2026 Car on sait que Hsieh ne truque pas ses images. Il met en sc\u00e8ne, les compose comme un peintre, mais il les r\u00e9p\u00e8te<\/i>, il ne\u00a0les r\u00e9ussit pas parfois, il les r\u00e9alise subtilement d\u2018autres fois, comme un cin\u00e9aste. Et bien que ce corps d\u00e9finitivement \u00ab\u00a0jet\u00e9 \u00e0 la ferraille\u00a0\u00bb signifie un incontestable pessimisme, et un d\u00e9sespoir qui ne pr\u00e9sage rien de bon pour l\u2019avenir de l\u2019humanit\u00e9, la fabrication m\u00eame de cette image trahit au contraire un paradoxal optimisme sur la possibilit\u00e9 de sa r\u00e9ussite. La patience attentive de l\u2019artiste a permis l\u2019\u00e9quilibre r\u00e9ussi entre des objets pos\u00e9s comme par hasard dans un lieu improbable, des corps qui posent<\/i> et un \u00e9v\u00e9nement fugace qui s\u2019accomplit. L\u2019image est donc complexe au-del\u00e0 d\u2019une stup\u00e9faction burlesque imm\u00e9diate, complexit\u00e9 de fabrication et de conception.<\/p>\n

Parmi ces images issues d\u2019une p\u00e9riode r\u00e9volue se distinguent deux exp\u00e9riences mati\u00e9ristes. L\u2019image 5 repr\u00e9sente une sorte de marais\u00a0 <\/span>ou plus exactement un paysage de dunes recouvert d\u2019une v\u00e9g\u00e9tation caract\u00e9ristique de celle qui pousse dans les estuaires des fleuves. L\u2019astre solaire est toujours l\u00e0 et il consume une partie de l\u2019horizon. Un premier tiers de l\u2019image est sombre du fait d\u2019une v\u00e9g\u00e9tation sp\u00e9cifique de l\u2019humidit\u00e9 des terrains qui connaissent des inondations. Et puis au second plan un terrain sablonneux, marbr\u00e9 ou tachet\u00e9 comme un tapis sur lequel marche un personnage dont on ne aper\u00e7oit que le dos \u00e0 la blancheur immacul\u00e9e et dont la chevelure para\u00eet se confondre avec les ramages du sol. Cette m\u00e9tamorphose inattendue qui d\u00e9coule de la d\u00e9capitation du personnage en mouvement vers le centre de l\u2019image conf\u00e8re au corps un statut d\u2019\u00e9trange, objet non identifi\u00e9 qui r\u00e9v\u00e8le par contagion la tendance g\u00e9n\u00e9rale de la repr\u00e9sentation du paysage vers l\u2019abstraction. Rien de \u00ab\u00a0documentaire\u00a0\u00bb dans le regard de Hsieh. Tout autant que la vanit\u00e9 que Blaise Pascal d\u00e9nonce en peinture, on pourrait \u00e0 juste titre\u00a0 <\/span>d\u00e9signer une comparable cons\u00e9quence dans les tableaux photographiques de Hsieh. Mais le mot de vanit\u00e9 pourrait \u00eatre \u00e9galement employ\u00e9 en un autre sens, toujours emprunt\u00e9 au domaine de la peinture\u00a0: les compositions photographiques de Hsieh Chun-Te invitent \u00e0 penser sur l\u2019instabilit\u00e9 des signes et des formes qui sp\u00e9cifient l\u2019humanit\u00e9. L\u2019artiste ta\u00efwanais, t\u00e9moin d\u2019une \u00eele qui conna\u00eet depuis de nombreuses ann\u00e9es une angoissante pr\u00e9carit\u00e9 politique face \u00e0 l\u2019immensit\u00e9 du continent d\u2019o\u00f9 elle s\u2019est extraite<\/i> – et dont elle se prot\u00e8ge-, est \u00e0 bon droit l\u00e9gitime pour traduire, avec une ambition m\u00e9taphysique non feinte, le sort \u00e9ph\u00e9m\u00e8re de l\u2019humanit\u00e9 enti\u00e8re.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

La figure 07 est plus impressionnante encore du point de vue de choc mati\u00e9riste. Le chaos des pierres est repr\u00e9sent\u00e9 de telle mani\u00e8re qu\u2019il parait illimit\u00e9 au-del\u00e0 du cadre, parti pris, all ove<\/i>r, qui cr\u00e9\u00e9 une nuit tellurique dans l\u2019image. Sur le sommet d\u2019un des plus gros rochers repose un visage prolong\u00e9 de fr\u00eales \u00e9paules. La chevelure, telle la fontaine capillaire de M\u00e9lisande, descend jusqu\u2019au bord inf\u00e9rieur de l\u2019image. Cette image pourrait offrir une version invers\u00e9e de la naissance de V\u00e9nus botticellienne. La blancheur de l\u2019\u00e9piderme, les yeux fig\u00e9s et \u00e9carquill\u00e9s, la chevelure abandonn\u00e9e et \u00e9pargn\u00e9e de tout souffle d\u2019air, concourent \u00e0 sugg\u00e9rer la mort plut\u00f4t qu\u2019une naissance, le doute sur la p\u00e9rennit\u00e9 humaine plut\u00f4t qu\u2019une confiance renaissante.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mais l\u2019inqui\u00e9tude \u00e9mise par cette image, dont le mouvement des lignes et les valeurs de gris sont admirables et pourraient \u00eatre compar\u00e9es aux dessins et lavis anciens de Chine, est contrebalanc\u00e9e par l\u2019audace formelle et une nouvelle fois son message<\/i>. Hsieh a n\u00e9cessairement voulu cette nuit des pierres et cette lumi\u00e8re du visage. Et cette image peut troubler et effrayer \u00e0 la mesure de cette fantomale apparition sans consistance ni volume. C\u2019est n\u00e9anmoins\u00a0 <\/span>l\u2019\u00e9clair de ce visage qui engendre une incontestable hypnose chez le spectateur.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Je ne crains pas d\u2019avancer que cette \u0153uvre de Hsieh Chun-Te est une de ses ic\u00f4nes les plus troublantes et je la relie tout en l\u2019opposant, \u00e0 cette image 03 inou\u00efe, absolument antagonique. Tout autant structur\u00e9e que les pr\u00e9c\u00e9dentes, structur\u00e9e en deux parties s\u00e9par\u00e9es par le zigzag<\/i> de la rambarde d\u2019un pont, une forme f\u00e9minine s\u2019\u00e9vanouit dans le mouvement et la lumi\u00e8re. La ville, lointaine, emport\u00e9e par le feu narcissique des lumi\u00e8res de la consommation, para\u00eet menacer d\u2019engloutir ce corps en mouvement pour \u00e9chapper \u00e0 l\u2019enfer. Irr\u00e9sistiblement, je songe \u00e0 ce paysage embras\u00e9 de la s\u00e9rie Tenky<\/i> o\u00f9 la nature enflamm\u00e9e, menace une Eve chass\u00e9e d\u2019un paradis broussailleux et rocheux. Il est probable que ce retour de l\u2019artiste vers des \u0153uvres que l\u2019on peut consid\u00e9rer comme \u00ab\u00a0de jeunesse\u00a0\u00bb r\u00e9v\u00e8le, sinon confirme, que l\u2019\u0153uvre enti\u00e8re est marqu\u00e9e du sceau de la menace fondamentale de la destruction par la combustion du r\u00e8gne du vivant. Et le recours \u00e0 la couleur pour les \u0153uvres r\u00e9centes n\u2019a pas amoindri le tourment apocalyptique d\u2019un artiste pour qui les d\u00e9sastres du progr\u00e8s et l\u2019indiff\u00e9rence au sort naturel du monde constitue l\u2019essentiel de sa passion de composer des images. Peut-on faire l\u2019hypoth\u00e8se que la couleur sert mieux encore la terreur incendiaire\u00a0?<\/p>\n

Pour terminer ce retour sur des \u0153uvres qui datent de presque un demi-si\u00e8cle, je voudrais insister sur l\u2019exceptionnelle permanence chez Hsieh de sa m\u00e9thode car telle ne fut pas ma surprise de d\u00e9couvrir que bien avant que la photo plasticienne<\/i> ne l\u2019emporte sur les murs des mus\u00e9es et des galeries, Hsieh envisageait pr\u00e9cocement l\u2019acte photographique comme prioritairement un acte de mise en sc\u00e8ne.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Peut-on d\u2019ailleurs consid\u00e9rer cette oeuvre comme appartenant au courant de la photographie plasticienne<\/i>\u00a0? Il faudrait sans doute inventer un autre vocable qui, en \u00e9vitant la r\u00e9f\u00e9rence au tableau vivant<\/i>, d\u00e9signerait une entreprise entre photographie et cin\u00e9ma. Il ne s\u2019agit pas de comparer des r\u00e9sultats. Les grandes compositions photographiques de Hsieh assument leur performance immobile et leur inqui\u00e9tude dynamique. Elles sont loin de l\u2019univers cin\u00e9matographique. Quelques images peuvent pourtant faire remonter dans la m\u00e9moire des images de Nagisa Oshima par exemple\u00a0 <\/span>ou un cin\u00e9aste moins \u00ab\u00a0classique\u00a0\u00bb, tel que Fruit Chan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Il s\u2019agit plut\u00f4t de rapprocher des proc\u00e9dures de mise en sc\u00e8ne. Chaque photographie de Hsieh \u2013 et cette m\u00e9thode a donc commenc\u00e9 \u00e0 \u00eatre mise en \u0153uvre d\u00e8s les ann\u00e9es 60 \u2013 est le terme ultime d\u2019un lent processus et d\u2019une longue pr\u00e9paration comprenant rep\u00e9rage des lieux, r\u00e9p\u00e9tition pour les \u00ab\u00a0acteurs\u00a0\u00bb, esquisses pr\u00e9figuratrices, costumes sp\u00e9cifiques et bien d\u2019autres travaux pr\u00e9paratoires pour obtenir ce que l\u2019on pourrait consid\u00e9rer comme un film condens\u00e9<\/i> en une seule photographie, ou l\u2019\u00e9quivalent d\u2019un seul photogramme qui ne serait pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 ni suivi d\u2019autres… Ce qui distingue les images si construites de Hsieh par rapport aux images d\u2019autres artistes contemporains, ce sont les partis pris visuels multiples au sein de l\u2019image qui d\u00e9stabilisent la repr\u00e9sentation et expriment la complexit\u00e9 de la fabrication. Je d\u00e9signe ainsi, parmi bien d\u2019autres aspects, les oppositions des mati\u00e8res de l\u2019image.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Aujourd\u2019hui je ne vois r\u00e9trospectivement qu\u2019un artiste empruntant le m\u00e9dium photographique qui associe une ambition documentaire et un lyrisme po\u00e9tique\u00a0: Jeff Wall. Nonobstant, la distance consid\u00e9rable qui les \u00e9loigne, distance que n\u2019explique pas seulement l\u00a0\u00e9loignement g\u00e9ographique entre Vancouvert et Taipei, ces deux artistes donnent \u00e0 la mise en sc\u00e8ne photographique\u00a0 <\/span>une importance \u00e0 la mesure des enjeux contemporains d\u2019une \u00e9poque o\u00f9 rien n\u2019est plus facile que de faire des images. Mais quelles images\u00a0? Bien entendu beaucoup de plasticiens prennent du temps dans leur studio pour charger<\/i> le d\u00e9cor de leurs prises de vue. Mais trop souvent, cela ne participe au fond, dans une majeure partie des cas, que d\u2019un d\u00e9cor kitsch. C\u2019est donc probablement longtemps avant qu\u2019une prise soit enfin possible, qu\u2019un artiste comme Hsieh, en oubliant quasiment le moment d\u00e9cisif de cette derni\u00e8re, pense, r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit<\/i> les maux du monde.<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n

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\n Fig.1: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Window , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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\n Fig. 2: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Bed , Archival inkjet print, 1969 <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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\n Fig. 4: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Outstretch into the Sky , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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\n Fig. 6: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Riverbed , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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\n Fig. 3: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Endless Night , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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\n Fig. 5: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Swamp , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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\n Fig. 7: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Ximenting , Archival inkjet print, 1969 <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The condensed cinema of Hsieh Chun -Te<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6499","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"yoast_head":"\nComment-The condensed cinema - Hsieh Chun-Te<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/comment-the-condensed-cinema\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Comment-The condensed cinema - Hsieh Chun-Te\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The condensed cinema of Hsieh Chun -Te\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/comment-the-condensed-cinema\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Hsieh Chun-Te\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-06-02T12:23:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w8.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"791\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"46 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/01x10.tw\\\/en\\\/comment-the-condensed-cinema\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/01x10.tw\\\/en\\\/comment-the-condensed-cinema\\\/\",\"name\":\"Comment-The condensed cinema - 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Some of his key motifs originated in those years. Which is not to say that making the later work, including the most recent series, TENKY, has been calm, smooth sailing. Calm is not what distinguishes Hsieh\u2019s work from that of other contemporary artists. That said, \u201cluxury and pleasure,\u201d to take the two other terms from the famous title by Henri Matisse (<i>luxe, calme et volupt\u00e9<\/i>), have often featured in the work of this Taiwanese artist.\u00a0<\/p> <p>A superficial approach to this work might place it within an international tendency bringing together such artists as Gilbert and George, Jo\u00ebl-Peter Witkin, Pierre & Gilles and David LaChapelle: in other words, a tendency that uses the photographic medium to create installations in which magnified or manipulated bodies are set in landscapes whose artificial lighting blurs the frontiers between the truth of nature and the artifice of the studio. But that would be to make a mistake about Hsieh\u2019s world and visual project. The retrospective approach recently initiated by the artist, allowing us to rediscover his works from the 1960s, gives a better idea of its specificity.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Right from the start, Hsieh\u2019s exceptional palette was black and white. What will impress us today, ideally, will not be just the infinite modulation of greys, something most twentieth-century masters of photography also aimed to achieve. No, Hsieh\u2019s obsessions lie elsewhere. They are embodied, more particularly, in the conflicts between <i>focus<\/i> and the diffraction of light, between the <i>sharp<\/i> and the blurred, between the clarity of the contours and the grain of the prints. The artist\u2019s other obsession lies in the conflict between forms of matter: marshes and epidermises, the accumulation of stones and capillary streams, the amorphous fragility of bodies and sculpted power of machines.<\/p> <p>The images we are seeing today, most of them made in the late 1960s, could be interpreted as fragments of life captured in the urgency of encounters accompanied by the accidents due to precipitousness. In fact, these images already express Hsieh\u2019s simultaneously <i>symbolist<\/i> and abstract ambition.<\/p> <p>Note: <i>symbolist<\/i> and not symbolic. There is a subtle distinction between the late nineteenth-century movement in painting and poetry, Symbolism, from the attempt to bestow a secondary meaning on the organisation of forms. There is, indeed, an undeniable symbolism in Hsieh\u2019s work, and especially recently. From Gustave Dor\u00e9 to Burne Jones, from Alfred Kubin to William Blake, we can discern the influence in the way the bodies are placed and in their confrontation with nature, all being part of a lyrical poetry which is ultimately concerned with conflict between tellurian and celestial forces. Most of all, though, these images which inaugurated Hsieh\u2019s work manifest a torment of abstraction. Image 01 is an extreme close-up on a body which fills almost all the space. As ever, there is a troubling eroticism in Hsieh\u2019s vision. Here, the framing suggests that the woman\u2019s dress is billowing up outside the frame. The close-up <i>depraves<\/i> the forms of the body and, upon close observation, there is utter uncertainty as to whether this figure is truly a human or just a doll, a living being or a lifeless dummy. Furthermore, the photo is backlit, and the bright light coming through the window \u201cburns\u201d the outlines of the exhibited body. Like a vampire, this mysterious silhouette seems to be eaten up by the light, disintegrating into an incandescent powder. That is why I feel I can speak here of Hsieh\u2019s \u201cabstract torment\u201d: the disappearance of figures, and a kind of terror of light, which are later developed to an apocalyptic degree in the <i>Tenky<\/i> series.<\/p> <p>Photo 02 uses and abuses light. No doubt it is the same window through which the fire passes here. But the interplay between appearance and disappearance in the previous image is acted out in this instance by the body reclining in the light, its nudity carefully hidden\/revealed by the artist. This body on which the black of an uncertain garment (rubber or leather?) opposes the white of the skin (the dazzling complexion of the buttocks), replays within the image the contrast between light and shadow which geometrically structures the space and references the medium itself.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Image 06 is even more audacious. I mentioned earlier the coexistence of the human body and the machine. This image is one of the finest examples of this relationship which evokes a vision pertinent to both Taiwan and the big city of Taipei traversed by waves of motorbikes and scooters. Hsieh\u2019s image is interesting because the image it conveys is one of immobility. What we see is clearly a garage, with the machines at rest. It is their shine and shape that the artist wants to bring to our attention: hence the close-up on the right of the coachwork of one of these machines. In addition to this, however, a young girl who could otherwise be bestriding one of these engines is lying on the floor, between them. And this languorous abandon creates an equivalence between the mechanical and the human orders. Image 04 provides comparable reasons for surprise. On a waste ground \u2013 the French term <i>terrain vague<\/i> conveys its imprecise urban status and formlessness, its atmosphere of disquiet and expectancy \u2013\u00a0the remains of a car occupy the centre of the image. In the opening previously filled by the window of a door now reduced to paltry remains, a human body has been thrust\u00a0\u2013 all we can see are the legs sticking up skywards. What are we to think? Has the body fallen from a great height? Fallen from another vehicle, as suggested by the aeroplane taking off in the background? Hsieh\u2019s approach here is probably meant to be humorous. But it is no doubt more gravely pessimistic if we consider the equivalence between the piece of scrap and the equally ruined body sticking out of it, which appears to have met its fate at the same time as the vehicle in which it remains imprisoned. In addition, might this be a way for the artist to evoke the coming fate of those who are flying in that distant jet? Or is the artist making another suggestion? Are the modern city seen to the left of the image and the people who live there both headed for the fate of the enigmatic composition in the centre of the image? Or, finally, is the central motif the metaphor for this city in the background? Here the image\u2019s symbolist ambition cannot be separated from its symbolic intent. This picture comes some twenty years before the <i>Raw<\/i> series, and yet it could easily be part of it. Like that series, image 04 was made on the basis of a strategy of a twofold delay or wait This strategy lies at the heart of Hsieh\u2019s aesthetic, well beyond the RAW series, and still constitutes a founding principle in the recent works.\u00a0<\/p> <p>The first wait is the one that corresponds to the time of making the photo as such, the exposure time needed to imprint the scene on the film. This variable exposure time depends on the quality of light. But we may assume that the quality of the images and the final form they take on the gallery or museum walls will have been taken to justify the attentive adjustments made during the production process.\u00a0<\/p> <p>The second wait is for \u201cthe right moment\u201d to capture the scene. This is not the \u201cdecisive moment,\u201d to use the term from French humanist photography. It is a \u201cgood moment,\u201d a moment that has been waited and hoped for and, of course, prepared and programmed. In the photograph here, it was necessary that the aeroplane <b>cross the image for a fraction of a second<\/b>. The artist had to wait in order to capture this ensemble. The actor in the image, whose legs are all we see, had to wait in that uncomfortable and acrobatic position. Another thing the artist and actor had to wait for was for the sun to be so positioned that the shadow of the two legs was visible \u201cin the right place.\u201d We know that Hsieh does not manipulate his images. He stages them, composes them like a painter, but he does <i>rehearse<\/i> them, and does not always succeed. He makes them subtly, like a film director. And although that body \u201cthrown on the scrap heap\u201d signifies an undeniable pessimism and a despair that bodes only ill for the future of humanity, the very making of this image, on the contrary, betrays a paradoxical optimism as to the possibility of its success. The artist\u2019s attentive patience has allowed a successful balance between objects placed seemingly by chance in an unlikely place, bodies that <i>pose<\/i>, and a fleeting event. The image is thus complex beyond its immediate, burlesque effect of surprise. This is a complexity of both production and conception.<\/p> <p>Among the images from the past, two textural pieces stand out. Image 05 represents a kind of swamp or, more exactly, a landscape of dunes covered with the kind of vegetation that grows on river estuaries. The solar star is still there and it consumes part of the horizon. A first third of the image is darkened by the plants that grow in floodable areas. Then, in the middle plane, sandy ground that is marbled or flecked like a carpet on which walks a figure of whom we see only the immaculately white back, and whose hair seems to merge with the foliage on the ground. This unexpected metamorphosis resulting from the decapitation of the figure moving towards the centre of the image bestows a strange status on the body, as un unidentified object which reveals, by contagion, the general tendency of the representation of landscape towards abstraction. There is nothing \u201cdocumentary\u201d about Hsieh\u2019s vision. Like the vanity that Blaise Pascale condemned in painting, one could justifiably designate comparable consequences in Hsieh\u2019s photographic tableaus. But the word vanity could also be used with another meaning, again taken from the field of painting: Hsieh Chun-Te\u2019s photographic tableaus encourage us to meditate on the instability of signs and forms that specify humanity. The Taiwanese artist, eyewitness on an island that for many years has felt an anxious political precariousness in the face of the immense nearby land from which it has separated, and from which it protects itself, has real legitimacy when it comes to expressing the ephemeral fate of all humanity, and he does so with genuine metaphysical ambition.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Figure 07 is even more impressive in terms of the clash of materials. The chaos of stones is represented in such a way as to seem without limits, extending beyond the frame, in an all-over approach which creates a tellurian darkness in the image. At the top of one of the biggest rocks is a face extended by slender shoulders. Reminiscent of M\u00e9lisande\u2019s fountain-like locks, the hair comes down to the lower edge of the image. The picture could be seen as a reverse version of Botticelli\u2019s <i>Birth of Venus<\/i>. The whiteness of the epidermis, the frozen, gaping eyes, the neglected hair, without a trace of wind, all suggest death rather than birth, doubt about the endurance of the human rather than reborn confidence.<\/p> <p>But the disquiet exuded by this image, with its admirable movement of lines and modulated greys comparable to the drawings and washes of ancient China, is counterbalanced by the formal boldness and, once again, the message. This image may trouble and frighten because of the ghostly appearance that has neither consistency nor volume. Nevertheless, it is the brightness of this face which engenders an undeniably hypnotic effect on the beholder.\u00a0<\/p> <p>I have no hesitation in arguing that this work by Hsieh Chun-Te is one of his most disturbing icons, one that I would link and at the same time contrast with the incredible, absolutely antagonistic image 03. Just as structured as the preceding images, structured in two parts separated by the zigzag of the parapet of a bridge, a female form melts into the movement of the light. The distant city, carried away in the narcissistic brightness of the lights of consumption, seems to threaten to swallow up this moving body in order to escape hell. It irresistibly reminds me of the <i>Tenky<\/i> series in which flaming nature threatens an Eve who has been expelled from a scrubby, stony paradise. It is likely that the artist\u2019s return to what could be considered \u201cyouthful works\u201d has revealed or even confirmed that his whole body of work is marked by the fundamental threat of the destruction of life by combustion. And the use of colour in the recent works has not diminished the apocalyptic torment of an artist from whom the disasters of progress and indifference to the natural fate of the world are to a large extent what drives his passion in composing images. Might we posit that colour serves this incendiary terror even more effectively?\u00a0<\/p> <p>To conclude this look back over works that are nearly half a century old, I would like to emphasise the remarkable constancy of Hsieh\u2019s method. Well before artist\u2019s photography became dominant on museum and gallery walls, I note with great surprise that Hsieh was already conceiving of the photographic act as essentially an act of staging.<\/p> <p>But then, should we really consider this work as belonging to the trend of artist\u2019s photography? No doubt we need to find another term than the French <i>photographie plasticienne<\/i>, one that, in avoiding reference to the <i>tableau vivant<\/i>, would designate an undertaking somewhere between photography and cinema. It is not a matter of comparing results. Hsieh\u2019s large-scale photographic compositions make no attempt to hide their immobile performance and their dynamic disquiet. They are far from the world of cinema. However, a few images might bring back memories of the films of Nagisa Oshima, for example, or, to take a less \u201cclassical\u201d filmmaker, Fruit Chan.\u00a0<\/p> <p>The point here is similarity of <i>mise-en-sc\u00e8ne<\/i>. Each of Hsieh\u2019s photographs \u2013 and this is a method that he began to apply as early as the 1960s \u2013 is the final step in a slow process and a long preparation that comprises finding locations, rehearsing with the \u201cactors,\u201d making anticipatory sketches, designing special costumes and many other preparatory actions that will obtain what one could think of as a <i>film condensed<\/i> into a single photograph, or the equivalent of a single frame \u2013 but with nothing before or after. What distinguishes Hsieh\u2019s highly constructed images from the images of other contemporary artists is the multiplicity of visual approaches within each image. These destabilise the representation and express the complexity of its making. I am referring here, among many other aspects, to the oppositions in the textures of the image.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Looking back today, I can think of only one artist working in the medium of photography who combines documentary ambition with poetic lyricism: Jeff Wall. Notwithstanding the considerable distance between them, a distance that is more than just the geographical distance between Vancouver and Taipei, these two artists accord an importance to their photographic staging proportionate to the weight of contemporary issues, and do so at a time when nothing is easier than making images. But <i>what<\/i> images? Of course, many artists take time in their studio to painstakingly build up the compositions in their photos. But in most cases, sadly, the result is just a kitsch backdrop. No doubt, then, it is long before the shot can be taken that an artist like Hsieh, almost forgetting the decisive moment of shutter release, <i>reflects on<\/i> the world\u2019s besetting ills.<\/p>\n<em><strong>French<\/strong><\/em> \u00a0 <h4>Le cin\u00e9ma condens\u00e9 de Hsieh Chun-Te<\/h4> <p><strong>Dominque Pa\u00efni \ufe31 Critique, Essayiste, Professeur \u00e0 l\u2019Ecole du Louvre<br><br><\/strong><\/p> <p>Dans la langue fran\u00e7aise l\u2019expression \u00ab\u00a0avoir de la suite dans les id\u00e9es\u00a0\u00bb d\u00e9signe la fid\u00e9lit\u00e9 \u00e0 soi-m\u00eame, l\u2019enracinement dans des partis pris inauguraux dont la vie se charge d\u2019enrichir, de d\u00e9ployer et de redistribuer autrement les motivations secr\u00e8tes et intimes.\u00a0<\/p> <p>D\u00e8s les ann\u00e9es 60, Hsieh Chun-Te construit son univers avec une assurance et une permanence r\u00e9guli\u00e8res. Une part essentielle de ses motifs s\u2019origine depuis ces ann\u00e9es. Cela ne veut pas dire que l\u2019\u0153uvre ult\u00e9rieure jusqu\u2019\u00e0 la r\u00e9cente derni\u00e8re s\u00e9rie TENKY, ait \u00e9t\u00e9 engendr\u00e9e dans le calme\u2026 Le calme n\u2019est pas le trait qui distingue l\u2019\u0153uvre de Hsieh par rapport aux plasticiens contemporains. En revanche, selon le titre fameux d\u2019Henri Matisse, \u00ab\u00a0le luxe et la volupt\u00e9\u00a0\u00bb furent souvent au rendez-vous de l\u2019artiste ta\u00efwanais.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Une approche superficielle de l\u2019\u0153uvre pourrait la faire appartenir \u00e0 un courant international qui m\u00ealerait des artistes qui vont de Guilbert and George, Jo\u00ebl-Peter Witkin, Pierre et Gilles ou David de la Chapelle\u2026 Autrement dit, un courant qui utilise le m\u00e9dium photographique pour figer des installations qui m\u00ealent des corps magnifi\u00e9s et\/ou maltrait\u00e9s dans des paysages dont les \u00e9clairages artificiels rendent indistinctes les fronti\u00e8res entre la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de la nature et l\u2019artifice du studio. Ce serait en effet se tromper sur l\u2019univers et le projet plastiques de Hsieh. L\u2019initiative r\u00e9trospective de l\u2019artiste qui consiste \u00e0 faire red\u00e9couvrir aujourd\u2019hui des travaux des ann\u00e9es 60 permet de percevoir mieux encore sa sp\u00e9cificit\u00e9.\u00a0<\/p> <p>D\u2019embl\u00e9e le noir et blanc fut l\u2019exceptionnelle palette de Hsieh. Id\u00e9alement, ce n\u2019est pas seulement l\u2019infinie modulation des gris qui impressionne aujourd\u2019hui et ce dont la plupart des ma\u00eetres de la photographie au XXe si\u00e8cle se partag\u00e8rent la vocation. Les obsessions de Hsieh sont ailleurs. Elles s\u2019incarnent plus particuli\u00e8rement dans les conflits entre le <i>point<\/i> et la diffraction lumineuse, entre le <i>piqu\u00e9 <\/i>et le flou, entre la nettet\u00e9 des contours et le grain des tirages. L\u2019autre obsession de l\u2019artiste r\u00e9side dans les conflits de mati\u00e8res\u00a0: mar\u00e9cages et \u00e9pidermes, accumulation des pierres et ruisseaux capillaires, fragilit\u00e9 informe des corps et puissance sculpt\u00e9e des machines\u2026\u00a0<\/p> <p>Les images que l\u2019on d\u00e9couvre aujourd\u2019hui, r\u00e9alis\u00e9es pour l\u2019essentiel \u00e0 la fin des ann\u00e9es 60, pourraient \u00eatre interpr\u00e9t\u00e9es comme des \u00e9clats de vie saisis dans l\u2019urgence des rencontres accompagn\u00e9 des accidents de la pr\u00e9cipitation. En fait, ces images traduisent d\u00e9j\u00e0 l\u2019ambition \u00e0 la fois <i>symboliste <\/i>et abstraite de Hsieh.\u00a0<\/p> <p>J\u2019insiste sur le mot <i>symboliste<\/i> et non pas la symbolique. La langue fran\u00e7aise distingue subtilement le courant pictural et po\u00e9tique de la fin du XIXe si\u00e8cle de l\u2019ambition de conf\u00e9rer un message second \u00e0 l\u2019organisation des formes. Il y a en effet un incontestable symbolisme dans l\u2019\u0153uvre de Hsieh et plus particuli\u00e8rement dans l\u2019\u0153uvre r\u00e9cente. De Gustave Dor\u00e9 \u00e0 Burne Jones, d\u2019Alfred Kubin \u00e0 William Blake, on peut rep\u00e9rer une influence dans l\u2019installation des corps et leur affrontement avec la nature participant d\u2019une po\u00e9sie lyrique dont l\u2019enjeu final est le conflit de forces telluriques et de forces c\u00e9lestes. Mais ces images qui ouvrent l\u2019\u0153uvre de Hsieh manifestent surtout un tourment de l\u2019abstraction. L\u2019image 01\u00a0 est un gros plan excessif sur un corps qui obstrue la quasi totalit\u00e9 de l\u2019espace. Il y a comme toujours un troublant \u00e9rotisme dans la vision de Hsieh. Ici, le cadrage sugg\u00e8re que la robe du personnage f\u00e9minin est soulev\u00e9e hors-champ\u2026 Le gros plan <i>d\u00e9prave <\/i>les formes du corps et au terme d\u2019une observation attentive, l\u2019incertitude est absolue quant \u00e0 savoir si le personnage fut v\u00e9ritablement un humain ou une poup\u00e9e, un \u00eatre vivant ou un mannequin inanim\u00e9. En outre, le clich\u00e9 est pris en contre-jour et une vive lumi\u00e8re traversant une fen\u00eatre br\u00fble les contours du corps expos\u00e9. Tel un vampire cette myst\u00e9rieuse silhouette para\u00eet se consumer dans la lumi\u00e8re et se fondre en une poussi\u00e8re incandescente. C\u2019est ce qui m\u2019autorise \u00e0 parler d\u2019un tourment abstrait de Hsieh\u00a0: disparition des figures et une certaine terreur \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e9gard de la lumi\u00e8re dont on retrouvera plus tard les d\u00e9veloppements apocalyptiques dans la s\u00e9rie <i>Tenky<\/i>.\u00a0<\/p> <p>La photo 02 use et abuse de la lumi\u00e8re. Probablement, la m\u00eame fen\u00eatre est emprunt\u00e9e pour laisser passer son feu. Mais le jeu entre apparition et disparition dans la pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente image se r\u00e9alise ici par ce corps allong\u00e9 sous la lumi\u00e8re dont l\u2019artiste a eu soin de r\u00e9v\u00e9ler\/cacher la nudit\u00e9. Ce corps sur lequel s\u2019opposent le noir d\u2019un v\u00eatement ambigu (caoutchouc ou cuir) et le blanc de l\u2019\u00e9piderme (\u00e9blouissante carnation des fesses), r\u00e9p\u00e8te dans l\u2019image m\u00eame le contraste entre ombre et lumi\u00e8re qui structure l\u2019espace de mani\u00e8re g\u00e9om\u00e9trique et renvoie au m\u00e9dium lui-m\u00eame.\u00a0<\/p> <p>L\u2019image 6 est plus audacieuse encore. J\u2019\u00e9voquais plus haut la coexistence du corps humain et de la machine. Cette image est un des beaux exemples de cette relation qui renvoie \u00e0 une vision commune \u00e0 Taiwan et \u00e0 la grande ville de Taipei travers\u00e9e par les vagues de motos et de scooters. Mais l\u2019image compos\u00e9e par Hsieh est intrigante car l\u2019effet qui s\u2019impose est l\u2019immobilit\u00e9. Il s\u2019agit manifestement d\u2019un garage, les machines y sont au repos et ce sont ces derni\u00e8res dont l\u2019artiste veut nous r\u00e9v\u00e9ler l\u2019\u00e9clat et les contours en imposant en gros plan \u00e0 droite la carrosserie d\u2019une de ces machines. Mais, de surcro\u00eet, la jeune fille qui pourrait chevaucher l\u2019une d\u2019entre elles, est allong\u00e9e au sol, au milieu d\u2019elles. Et ce langoureux abandon cr\u00e9e une \u00e9quivalence entre l\u2019ordre machinique et l\u2019ordre humain. C\u2019est pour de comparables raisons que nous pouvons \u00eatre stup\u00e9faits pas l\u2019image 04\u00a0: dans un terrain dont le qualificatif fran\u00e7ais \u00ab\u00a0vague\u00a0\u00bb d\u00e9signe bien le statut urbain non pr\u00e9cis\u00e9 et l\u2019apparence informe, l\u2019inqui\u00e9tude et l\u2019attente de destination, un reste de carlingue d\u2019automobile g\u00eet au centre de l\u2019image. Dans l\u2019ouverture, jadis occup\u00e9e par une vitre d\u2019une porti\u00e8re devenue d\u00e9risoire, plonge un corps humain dont on ne per\u00e7oit que les jambes dress\u00e9es vers le ciel. Que penser? Ce corps serait-il tomb\u00e9 de haut\u2026 Tomb\u00e9 d\u2019un autre v\u00e9hicule comme le sugg\u00e8re l\u2019avion qui d\u00e9colle au fond de l\u2019image\u00a0? Le parti pris de Hsieh se veut ici probablement humoristique. Il est sans doute plus gravement pessimiste si on consid\u00e8re l\u2019\u00e9quivalence entre cette ferraille en ruine d\u2019o\u00f9 jaillit un corps tout autant en ruine et qui para\u00eet avoir connu son sort fatal en m\u00eame temps que l\u2019habitacle dont il est encore prisonnier. En outre, est-ce une mani\u00e8re pour l\u2019artiste d\u2019\u00e9voquer le sort \u00e0 venir de ceux qui s\u2019envolent dans le jet du fond de l\u2019image\u00a0? Ou est-ce encore une autre suggestion que l\u2019artiste \u00e9met\u00a0: la cit\u00e9 moderne qui appara\u00eet \u00e0 gauche de l\u2019image et ceux qui l\u2019habitent sont-ils\u00a0 promis au devenir de l\u2019\u00e9nigmatique composition du centre de l\u2019image\u00a0? Ou, enfin, le motif central est-il la m\u00e9taphore de cette ville en fond d\u2019image\u00a0? On ne peut dissocier ici l\u2019ambition symboliste de l\u2019image et sa volont\u00e9 symbolique. Cette image pr\u00e9c\u00e8de d\u2019une vingtaine d\u2019ann\u00e9e la s\u00e9rie<i> Raw<\/i>. Pourtant elle pourrait \u00e0 bon droit en faire partie. Comme cette s\u00e9rie, l\u2019image 4 a \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9alis\u00e9e depuis une double strat\u00e9gie d\u2019attente. Cette strat\u00e9gie est au c\u0153ur de l\u2019esth\u00e9tique de Hsieh, bien au-del\u00e0 de la s\u00e9rie RAW et constitue toujours un principe fondateur dans les \u0153uvres r\u00e9centes.\u00a0<\/p> <p>La premi\u00e8re attente est celle qui correspond au temps de r\u00e9alisation proprement dite du clich\u00e9, temps d\u2019exposition de la sc\u00e8ne \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re pour l\u2019enregistrement sur la pellicule. Selon le contexte lumineux, ce temps d\u2019exposition varie. Mais on peut supposer que la qualit\u00e9 des images et leur format d\u00e9finitif aux murs d\u2019une galerie ou d\u2019un mus\u00e9e a justifi\u00e9 d\u2019attentifs r\u00e9glages lors de la r\u00e9alisation.\u00a0<\/p> <p>La seconde attente est celle du \u00ab\u00a0bon moment\u00a0\u00bb o\u00f9 la sc\u00e8ne peut \u00eatre saisie. Il ne s\u2019agit pas d\u2019un \u00ab\u00a0instant d\u00e9cisif\u00a0\u00bb pour reprendre l\u2019expression de la photographie humaniste fran\u00e7aise. C\u2019est un \u00ab\u00a0bon moment\u00a0\u00bb attendu, esp\u00e9r\u00e9, et bien entendu pr\u00e9par\u00e9, programm\u00e9. Dans la photographie pr\u00e9sente, il faut que cet avion soit durant une fraction de seconde l\u00e0, o\u00f9 et comme il appara\u00eet\u2026 L\u2019artiste d\u00fb attendre pour saisir cet ensemble. L\u2019acteur de l\u2019image dont on ne per\u00e7oit que les jambes d\u00fb attendre \u00e9galement dans cette position inconfortable et acrobatique. L\u2019artiste et l\u2019interpr\u00e8te durent attendre que le soleil soit lui aussi au rendez-vous pour que l\u2019ombre des deux jambes s\u2019affiche au \u00ab\u00a0bon endroit\u00a0\u00bb\u2026 Car on sait que Hsieh ne truque pas ses images. Il met en sc\u00e8ne, les compose comme un peintre, mais il les <i>r\u00e9p\u00e8te<\/i>, il ne\u00a0les r\u00e9ussit pas parfois, il les r\u00e9alise subtilement d\u2018autres fois, comme un cin\u00e9aste. Et bien que ce corps d\u00e9finitivement \u00ab\u00a0jet\u00e9 \u00e0 la ferraille\u00a0\u00bb signifie un incontestable pessimisme, et un d\u00e9sespoir qui ne pr\u00e9sage rien de bon pour l\u2019avenir de l\u2019humanit\u00e9, la fabrication m\u00eame de cette image trahit au contraire un paradoxal optimisme sur la possibilit\u00e9 de sa r\u00e9ussite. La patience attentive de l\u2019artiste a permis l\u2019\u00e9quilibre r\u00e9ussi entre des objets pos\u00e9s comme par hasard dans un lieu improbable, des corps qui <i>posent<\/i> et un \u00e9v\u00e9nement fugace qui s\u2019accomplit. L\u2019image est donc complexe au-del\u00e0 d\u2019une stup\u00e9faction burlesque imm\u00e9diate, complexit\u00e9 de fabrication et de conception.<\/p> <p>Parmi ces images issues d\u2019une p\u00e9riode r\u00e9volue se distinguent deux exp\u00e9riences mati\u00e9ristes. L\u2019image 5 repr\u00e9sente une sorte de marais\u00a0 ou plus exactement un paysage de dunes recouvert d\u2019une v\u00e9g\u00e9tation caract\u00e9ristique de celle qui pousse dans les estuaires des fleuves. L\u2019astre solaire est toujours l\u00e0 et il consume une partie de l\u2019horizon. Un premier tiers de l\u2019image est sombre du fait d\u2019une v\u00e9g\u00e9tation sp\u00e9cifique de l\u2019humidit\u00e9 des terrains qui connaissent des inondations. Et puis au second plan un terrain sablonneux, marbr\u00e9 ou tachet\u00e9 comme un tapis sur lequel marche un personnage dont on ne aper\u00e7oit que le dos \u00e0 la blancheur immacul\u00e9e et dont la chevelure para\u00eet se confondre avec les ramages du sol. Cette m\u00e9tamorphose inattendue qui d\u00e9coule de la d\u00e9capitation du personnage en mouvement vers le centre de l\u2019image conf\u00e8re au corps un statut d\u2019\u00e9trange, objet non identifi\u00e9 qui r\u00e9v\u00e8le par contagion la tendance g\u00e9n\u00e9rale de la repr\u00e9sentation du paysage vers l\u2019abstraction. Rien de \u00ab\u00a0documentaire\u00a0\u00bb dans le regard de Hsieh. Tout autant que la vanit\u00e9 que Blaise Pascal d\u00e9nonce en peinture, on pourrait \u00e0 juste titre\u00a0 d\u00e9signer une comparable cons\u00e9quence dans les tableaux photographiques de Hsieh. Mais le mot de vanit\u00e9 pourrait \u00eatre \u00e9galement employ\u00e9 en un autre sens, toujours emprunt\u00e9 au domaine de la peinture\u00a0: les compositions photographiques de Hsieh Chun-Te invitent \u00e0 penser sur l\u2019instabilit\u00e9 des signes et des formes qui sp\u00e9cifient l\u2019humanit\u00e9. L\u2019artiste ta\u00efwanais, t\u00e9moin d\u2019une \u00eele qui conna\u00eet depuis de nombreuses ann\u00e9es une angoissante pr\u00e9carit\u00e9 politique face \u00e0 l\u2019immensit\u00e9 du continent d\u2019o\u00f9 elle s\u2019est <i>extraite<\/i> - et dont elle se prot\u00e8ge-, est \u00e0 bon droit l\u00e9gitime pour traduire, avec une ambition m\u00e9taphysique non feinte, le sort \u00e9ph\u00e9m\u00e8re de l\u2019humanit\u00e9 enti\u00e8re.\u00a0<\/p> <p>La figure 07 est plus impressionnante encore du point de vue de choc mati\u00e9riste. Le chaos des pierres est repr\u00e9sent\u00e9 de telle mani\u00e8re qu\u2019il parait illimit\u00e9 au-del\u00e0 du cadre, parti pris, <i>all ove<\/i>r, qui cr\u00e9\u00e9 une nuit tellurique dans l\u2019image. Sur le sommet d\u2019un des plus gros rochers repose un visage prolong\u00e9 de fr\u00eales \u00e9paules. La chevelure, telle la fontaine capillaire de M\u00e9lisande, descend jusqu\u2019au bord inf\u00e9rieur de l\u2019image. Cette image pourrait offrir une version invers\u00e9e de la naissance de V\u00e9nus botticellienne. La blancheur de l\u2019\u00e9piderme, les yeux fig\u00e9s et \u00e9carquill\u00e9s, la chevelure abandonn\u00e9e et \u00e9pargn\u00e9e de tout souffle d\u2019air, concourent \u00e0 sugg\u00e9rer la mort plut\u00f4t qu\u2019une naissance, le doute sur la p\u00e9rennit\u00e9 humaine plut\u00f4t qu\u2019une confiance renaissante.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Mais l\u2019inqui\u00e9tude \u00e9mise par cette image, dont le mouvement des lignes et les valeurs de gris sont admirables et pourraient \u00eatre compar\u00e9es aux dessins et lavis anciens de Chine, est contrebalanc\u00e9e par l\u2019audace formelle et une nouvelle fois son <i>message<\/i>. Hsieh a n\u00e9cessairement voulu cette nuit des pierres et cette lumi\u00e8re du visage. Et cette image peut troubler et effrayer \u00e0 la mesure de cette fantomale apparition sans consistance ni volume. C\u2019est n\u00e9anmoins\u00a0 l\u2019\u00e9clair de ce visage qui engendre une incontestable hypnose chez le spectateur.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Je ne crains pas d\u2019avancer que cette \u0153uvre de Hsieh Chun-Te est une de ses ic\u00f4nes les plus troublantes et je la relie tout en l\u2019opposant, \u00e0 cette image 03 inou\u00efe, absolument antagonique. Tout autant structur\u00e9e que les pr\u00e9c\u00e9dentes, structur\u00e9e en deux parties s\u00e9par\u00e9es par le <i>zigzag<\/i> de la rambarde d\u2019un pont, une forme f\u00e9minine s\u2019\u00e9vanouit dans le mouvement et la lumi\u00e8re. La ville, lointaine, emport\u00e9e par le feu narcissique des lumi\u00e8res de la consommation, para\u00eet menacer d\u2019engloutir ce corps en mouvement pour \u00e9chapper \u00e0 l\u2019enfer. Irr\u00e9sistiblement, je songe \u00e0 ce paysage embras\u00e9 de la s\u00e9rie <i>Tenky<\/i> o\u00f9 la nature enflamm\u00e9e, menace une Eve chass\u00e9e d\u2019un paradis broussailleux et rocheux. Il est probable que ce retour de l\u2019artiste vers des \u0153uvres que l\u2019on peut consid\u00e9rer comme \u00ab\u00a0de jeunesse\u00a0\u00bb r\u00e9v\u00e8le, sinon confirme, que l\u2019\u0153uvre enti\u00e8re est marqu\u00e9e du sceau de la menace fondamentale de la destruction par la combustion du r\u00e8gne du vivant. Et le recours \u00e0 la couleur pour les \u0153uvres r\u00e9centes n\u2019a pas amoindri le tourment apocalyptique d\u2019un artiste pour qui les d\u00e9sastres du progr\u00e8s et l\u2019indiff\u00e9rence au sort naturel du monde constitue l\u2019essentiel de sa passion de composer des images. Peut-on faire l\u2019hypoth\u00e8se que la couleur sert mieux encore la terreur incendiaire\u00a0?<\/p> <p>Pour terminer ce retour sur des \u0153uvres qui datent de presque un demi-si\u00e8cle, je voudrais insister sur l\u2019exceptionnelle permanence chez Hsieh de sa m\u00e9thode car telle ne fut pas ma surprise de d\u00e9couvrir que bien avant que la <i>photo plasticienne<\/i> ne l\u2019emporte sur les murs des mus\u00e9es et des galeries, Hsieh envisageait pr\u00e9cocement l\u2019acte photographique comme prioritairement un acte de mise en sc\u00e8ne.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Peut-on d\u2019ailleurs consid\u00e9rer cette oeuvre comme appartenant au courant de la <i>photographie plasticienne<\/i>\u00a0? Il faudrait sans doute inventer un autre vocable qui, en \u00e9vitant la r\u00e9f\u00e9rence au <i>tableau vivant<\/i>, d\u00e9signerait une entreprise entre photographie et cin\u00e9ma. Il ne s\u2019agit pas de comparer des r\u00e9sultats. Les grandes compositions photographiques de Hsieh assument leur performance immobile et leur inqui\u00e9tude dynamique. Elles sont loin de l\u2019univers cin\u00e9matographique. Quelques images peuvent pourtant faire remonter dans la m\u00e9moire des images de Nagisa Oshima par exemple\u00a0 ou un cin\u00e9aste moins \u00ab\u00a0classique\u00a0\u00bb, tel que Fruit Chan.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Il s\u2019agit plut\u00f4t de rapprocher des proc\u00e9dures de mise en sc\u00e8ne. Chaque photographie de Hsieh \u2013 et cette m\u00e9thode a donc commenc\u00e9 \u00e0 \u00eatre mise en \u0153uvre d\u00e8s les ann\u00e9es 60 \u2013 est le terme ultime d\u2019un lent processus et d\u2019une longue pr\u00e9paration comprenant rep\u00e9rage des lieux, r\u00e9p\u00e9tition pour les \u00ab\u00a0acteurs\u00a0\u00bb, esquisses pr\u00e9figuratrices, costumes sp\u00e9cifiques et bien d\u2019autres travaux pr\u00e9paratoires pour obtenir ce que l\u2019on pourrait consid\u00e9rer comme un <i>film condens\u00e9<\/i> en une seule photographie, ou l\u2019\u00e9quivalent d\u2019un seul photogramme qui ne serait pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 ni suivi d\u2019autres... Ce qui distingue les images si construites de Hsieh par rapport aux images d\u2019autres artistes contemporains, ce sont les partis pris visuels multiples au sein de l\u2019image qui d\u00e9stabilisent la repr\u00e9sentation et expriment la complexit\u00e9 de la fabrication. Je d\u00e9signe ainsi, parmi bien d\u2019autres aspects, les oppositions des mati\u00e8res de l\u2019image.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Aujourd\u2019hui je ne vois r\u00e9trospectivement qu\u2019un artiste empruntant le m\u00e9dium photographique qui associe une ambition documentaire et un lyrisme po\u00e9tique\u00a0: Jeff Wall. Nonobstant, la distance consid\u00e9rable qui les \u00e9loigne, distance que n\u2019explique pas seulement l\u00a0\u00e9loignement g\u00e9ographique entre Vancouvert et Taipei, ces deux artistes donnent \u00e0 la mise en sc\u00e8ne photographique\u00a0 une importance \u00e0 la mesure des enjeux contemporains d\u2019une \u00e9poque o\u00f9 rien n\u2019est plus facile que de faire des images. Mais quelles images\u00a0? Bien entendu beaucoup de plasticiens prennent du temps dans leur studio pour <i>charger<\/i> le d\u00e9cor de leurs prises de vue. Mais trop souvent, cela ne participe au fond, dans une majeure partie des cas, que d\u2019un d\u00e9cor kitsch. C\u2019est donc probablement longtemps avant qu\u2019une prise soit enfin possible, qu\u2019un artiste comme Hsieh, en oubliant quasiment le moment d\u00e9cisif de cette derni\u00e8re, pense, <i>r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit<\/i> les maux du monde.<\/p>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w8-1024x675-600x420.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"420\" title=\"Fig.1: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Window , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" alt=\"Fig.1: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Window , Archival inkjet print, 1968\"> <h3> Fig.1: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Window , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/02\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u500b\u5c55-\u5e8aBed1967-1-1024x709-600x420.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"420\" title=\"Fig. 2: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Bed , Archival inkjet print, 1969\" alt=\"Fig. 2: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Bed , Archival inkjet print, 1969\"> <h3> Fig. 2: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Bed , Archival inkjet print, 1969 <\/h3>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/16-\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u651d\u5f71\u500b\u5c55-\u4f38\u5411\u5929\u7a7aDutstretch-into-Sk1968-1-1024x689-600x420.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"420\" title=\"Fig. 4: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Outstretch into the Sky , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" alt=\"Fig. 4: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Outstretch into the Sky , Archival inkjet print, 1968\"> <h3> Fig. 4: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Outstretch into the Sky , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w4-1024x675-420x300.jpg\" width=\"420\" height=\"300\" title=\"Fig. 6: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Riverbed , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" alt=\"Fig. 6: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Riverbed , Archival inkjet print, 1968\"> <h3> Fig. 6: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Riverbed , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/05\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u500b\u5c55-\u591c\u672a\u592eEndiess-Night1968-1-1024x689-420x300.jpg\" width=\"420\" height=\"300\" title=\"Fig. 3: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Endless Night , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" alt=\"Fig. 3: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Endless Night , Archival inkjet print, 1968\"> <h3> Fig. 3: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Endless Night , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w1-1024x675-420x300.jpg\" width=\"420\" height=\"300\" title=\"Fig. 5: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Swamp , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" alt=\"Fig. 5: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Swamp , Archival inkjet print, 1968\"> <h3> Fig. 5: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Swamp , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w2-1024x675-420x300.jpg\" width=\"420\" height=\"300\" title=\"Fig. 7: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Ximenting , Archival inkjet print, 1969\" alt=\"Fig. 7: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Ximenting , Archival inkjet print, 1969\"> <h3> Fig. 7: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Ximenting , Archival inkjet print, 1969 <\/h3>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w8.jpg\" title=\"Fig.1: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Window , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" alt=\"Fig.1: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Window , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w8.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w8-400x264.jpg 400w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w8-1024x675.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w8-768x506.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/> <h3> Fig.1: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Window , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/02\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u500b\u5c55-\u5e8aBed1967-1.jpg\" title=\"Fig. 2: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Bed , Archival inkjet print, 1969\" alt=\"Fig. 2: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Bed , Archival inkjet print, 1969\" srcset=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/02\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u500b\u5c55-\u5e8aBed1967-1.jpg 2000w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/02\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u500b\u5c55-\u5e8aBed1967-1-400x277.jpg 400w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/02\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u500b\u5c55-\u5e8aBed1967-1-1024x709.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/02\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u500b\u5c55-\u5e8aBed1967-1-768x531.jpg 768w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/02\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u500b\u5c55-\u5e8aBed1967-1-1536x1063.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" \/> <h3> Fig. 2: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Bed , Archival inkjet print, 1969 <\/h3>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/05\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u500b\u5c55-\u591c\u672a\u592eEndiess-Night1968-1.jpg\" title=\"Fig. 3: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Endless Night , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" alt=\"Fig. 3: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Endless Night , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/05\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u500b\u5c55-\u591c\u672a\u592eEndiess-Night1968-1.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/05\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u500b\u5c55-\u591c\u672a\u592eEndiess-Night1968-1-400x269.jpg 400w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/05\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u500b\u5c55-\u591c\u672a\u592eEndiess-Night1968-1-1024x689.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/05\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u500b\u5c55-\u591c\u672a\u592eEndiess-Night1968-1-768x517.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" \/> <h3> Fig. 3: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Endless Night , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/16-\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u651d\u5f71\u500b\u5c55-\u4f38\u5411\u5929\u7a7aDutstretch-into-Sk1968-1.jpg\" title=\"Fig. 4: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Outstretch into the Sky , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" alt=\"Fig. 4: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Outstretch into the Sky , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/16-\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u651d\u5f71\u500b\u5c55-\u4f38\u5411\u5929\u7a7aDutstretch-into-Sk1968-1.jpg 2067w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/16-\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u651d\u5f71\u500b\u5c55-\u4f38\u5411\u5929\u7a7aDutstretch-into-Sk1968-1-400x269.jpg 400w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/16-\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u651d\u5f71\u500b\u5c55-\u4f38\u5411\u5929\u7a7aDutstretch-into-Sk1968-1-1024x689.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/16-\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u651d\u5f71\u500b\u5c55-\u4f38\u5411\u5929\u7a7aDutstretch-into-Sk1968-1-768x517.jpg 768w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/16-\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u651d\u5f71\u500b\u5c55-\u4f38\u5411\u5929\u7a7aDutstretch-into-Sk1968-1-1536x1034.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/16-\u7b2c\u4e00\u6b21\u651d\u5f71\u500b\u5c55-\u4f38\u5411\u5929\u7a7aDutstretch-into-Sk1968-1-2048x1378.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2067px) 100vw, 2067px\" \/> <h3> Fig. 4: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Outstretch into the Sky , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w4.jpg\" title=\"Fig. 4: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Outstretch into the Sky , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" alt=\"Fig. 4: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Outstretch into the Sky , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w4.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w4-400x264.jpg 400w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w4-1024x675.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w4-768x506.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/> <h3> Fig. 4: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Outstretch into the Sky , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w1.jpg\" title=\"Fig. 5: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Swamp , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" alt=\"Fig. 5: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Swamp , Archival inkjet print, 1968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w1.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w1-400x264.jpg 400w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w1-1024x675.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w1-768x506.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/> <h3> Fig. 5: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Swamp , Archival inkjet print, 1968 <\/h3>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w2.jpg\" title=\"Fig. 7: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Ximenting , Archival inkjet print, 1969\" alt=\"Fig. 7: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Ximenting , Archival inkjet print, 1969\" srcset=\"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w2.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w2-400x264.jpg 400w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w2-1024x675.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1969-w2-768x506.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/> <h3> Fig. 7: Hsieh Chun-Te, First Solo Exhibition - Ximenting , Archival inkjet print, 1969 <\/h3>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6499"}],"version-history":[{"count":42,"href":"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8065,"href":"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6499\/revisions\/8065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/01x10.tw\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}