CHANG Chao-Tang

CHANG Chao-Tang’s 1978 photograph portrays Li Tien-Lu, a master puppeteer. The face of the artist and the face of the puppet seem to hold different times at once — a living hand, an enduring figure.
    Resonating with one of the Biennial’s three conceptual departure points — Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s film The Puppetmaster, part documentary, part biopic about Li Tien-Lu — the image centers his life. For Li, puppetry was a constant: a hand-held theater speaking through Japanese colonial rule, World War II, KMT rule (Kuomintang, the ruling party for decades after 1949), and later modernization, prosperity, and democratization. To hold the puppet was to hold a local voice he could trust — yearning for what endures as things shift.
    CHANG Chao-Tang, trained in civil engineering at National Taiwan University and a leading figure in photography and documentary, pairs history with distilled form — letting face and figure carry meaning.