In the solo exhibition, Until Now, London-based Taiwanese artist Ting Tong Chang presents five pieces of kinetic sculpture. By delicately utilizing explosives, light and smoke as sculptural elements, these works evoke religious notions of magic, miracle and resurrection to address ideas of success and failure in political speech.
Chang takes inspiration from Hugo Chavez’s failed 1992 coup d’état (Operation Zamora) in which, angered by the acceptance of the Washington Consensus and implementation of neoliberal reforms by President Carlos Andres Perez of Venezuela, Lieutenant-Colonel Hugo Chavez launched an attempted coup with the mission of overwhelming key military and communications installations. Due to numerous betrayals and errors, Chavez’s forces were unable to seize power and subsequently, Chavez and a small group of rebels were surrounded in the Military Museum and forced to surrender in front of the national TV channels.
The resulting speech immediately brought Chavez into the national spotlight, as many Venezuelans, particularly those from the poorer sections of society, came to see him as a figure who stood up against government corruption and kleptocracy.
Chavez, driven by a mystical sense of authority, remarked that he had failed only for now (por ahora).
To Chang, a coup is not just a sudden and violent deposition of a government, but through new technology, it also becomes a form of expression—a play of rhetoric, religious rituals and the situation at hand.
In the 21st century, where the revolutionary subject is digitalized and mediated by technology, any coup has the potential to remain open ended…until now.
TING-TONG CHANG Until Now
Minto House, Matthew Gallery,
20 Chambers St Edinburgh EH1 1JZ,
(opposite the National Museum of Scotland)
25 July – 8 August, 2014, Monday-Friday, 10am-5pm
opening: 6-8pm, Friday, 25 July
Submitted by Alice Klarr
