KÜNSTLERHAUS

BETHANIEN

Künstler*innen

Ya-Wen Fu

Taiwan

© Ya-Wen Fu

Ya-Wen Fu (b. 1980) is a Taiwanese media artist and curator who lives and creates between Taiwan and Germany. She studied between 2007 and 2016 at the HGB – Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig.

Fu’s complex work cannot be labelled as a plain performance or installation, as she focused on the relationship between body and space. While other performers might present their subject, for instance, by completely exposing their bodies, revealing their vulnerabilities or ego, Ya-Wen Fu covers herself with and is held by protective sculptural, installation-like constructions. These additional material units are extended devices that function visibly as expansions extracted from the human body. At first glance, the constructive elements activated by the artist’s motion could appear as protective mantels or armours. However, a thorough look reveals that they meant to serve the opposite. Ya-Wen Fu demonstrated in her animated sculptures that, from her point of view, one’s body is never free from social imprint and constraints.

Between 2009 and 2013, Ya-Wen Fu was one of the three curators in the tamtam ART Berlin, an exhibition space established to display Taiwanese artists in the German capital. This organization is still active in Taiwan. Fu had a solo show at the Taipei Fine Art Museum (2021), and her work was displayed at ZKM: Zentrum für Kunst und Medien in Karlsruhe (2018). She was granted the A-i-R CYNETART award in 2018.