blurb…
Each generation of artists has to be sensitive to the needs of changing social and cultural structures in order to select the tactics of their practice. Tactics involve shaking off the rigidity of the art system—its productions and value systems—and, ultimately, mobilizing spaces beyond artistic practice. This issue’s cover feature probes into how artists worldwide “strategize”: we examine the art fair, corporatized art production, the urban context, invented and incorporated artist identities, and other tactics that expand the possibilities for contemporary art.
In addition, Leap’s middle section introduces two artists—Liu Wei, a unique Beijing figure, and medium-savvy Taiwanese video artist Kao Chung-Li. Robin Peckham uses diagrams to investigate the material and linguistic features of Liu’s work between 1999 and 2015; while Hsu Fang-Tze analyzes Kao Chung-Li’s video practice by way of his machines (including all sorts of video cameras, projectors and other mechanisms for image circulation propelled by capitalism), and looks at how the artist turns his eye back on the intellectual hegemony of image machines and machine images alike…