The Authenticity of Contemporary Photography

November 11, 2020

The birth of an image is often arbitrary, but the possibility of interpretation is never lost. The camera holder has the ability to manipulate the captured view and the viewing angle of the picture, generating a power dynamic over the viewer. Moreover, the camera lens are easily in the hands of the general public. These phenomenon rendered photography to be hardly recognized as a professional art.

In this seminar, Manbo Key (Teng-Chi Yang), winner of the first prize of the Taipei Fine Arts Award, addressed the “real” and “fiction” of photography with the historical clues of the development of Taiwan's underground culture and transgender identity in his work Father’s Video Tapes. He further touched upon how life issues of an individual could be processed by contemporary photography.

Father’s Video Tapes is a project that Manbo Key (Teng-Chi Yang) worked on for more than a decade. The artist attempted to trace, understand and recreate the mysterious, detached yet surprisingly realistic relationship between his father and himself with the use of photography, video recording, objects and devices. In the 90s, he discovered video tapes of his father's self recordings and inevitably found out about his father’s sexual orientation. The revelation led to a new understanding of both the individual and societal definitions of the role of “Father.” (An execrate from Taipei Fine Arts Museum.)

Planned and co-organized by pong ding︎︎︎.
Published: November 11, 2020. Last Updated: August 16, 2022.