Re: City of Combat

This exhibition is part of Taipower Kaohsiung's Phase III Public Art Installation Project. 'Re' signifies restarting and returning. In this exhibition, it symbolizes artist Chang Li-Ren's complete series of 'City of Combat' showcased at MoNTUE in 2024. After the works were acquired by Taiwan Power Company, Chang built upon existing accumulations, re-examining his own creations, and further adjusting, supplementing, and advancing his artistic trajectory. Through animated films, comics, storyboards, scene models, character figures, and props, this exhibition focuses on the 'worldview' the artist constructed in 'City of Combat,' forming multiple contrasts with the real world through a process of retrospection and renewal. 'City of Combat,' completed over fourteen years, was for Chang Li-Ren a process of exploring the 'essence of art.' Initially, he contemplated: what exactly is art? Can it avoid being defined too quickly? Are there other imaginative possibilities? He also explored how artists create pathways for thinking about and perceiving the world, and how they ascertain the meaning of their environment and era for themselves. The stop-motion animation of 'City of Combat' Parts I and II, and the comic book of Part III, are 'by-products' created during the artist's exploration of these paths and possibilities, akin to creative residues. Other components of the series, such as scene models, characters, and storyboards, are like nesting dolls, produced solely for the purpose of making the animation. This implies that what the public traditionally perceives as the final works—including animation and comics, down to the scenes and props used in their production—are, for the artist, 'results not intended as the primary objective.' Even the artist himself can be considered a by-product of specific cultures. Chang Li-Ren does not seek his creative basis in mainstream art history or discourse. Instead, viewers can discover many subcultural influences in 'City of Combat': whether it's the tokusatsu filming techniques inspired by 'Doraemon' comics, or the strange tales of the apocalypse and aliens from 'World Mysteries.' These childhood readings presented peculiar imaginings of the world that deeply fascinated the artist. These early reading experiences remained in his memory and consciousness, later to be reassembled and transformed into parts of his work years later. The meaning of the exhibition title 'Re' is embodied in the first presentation of 'City of Combat' Part I, 'Light of Taiwan (New Game+).' In the gaming world, 'New Game+' represents the process where a player, after completing a game for the first time, restarts with accumulated experience points and equipment. For the artist, this re-creation is like stepping into a time machine, deliberately allowing the present and past to overlap to respond to and compensate for his past self, who was limited by previous conditions. From filming and editing animated footage that, due to exploratory production techniques, was incomplete years ago, to supplementing story fragments that were deleted due to practical considerations, the artist seems to have restarted the gears of his creative life, propelling 'City of Combat' towards its next narrative cycle, continuously forging new paths amidst a sense of cyclical déjà vu.