Tsai Ming-Liang

GALERIES, in collaboration with the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, is presenting a retrospective of the director Tsai Ming-Liang and the exhibition “Walker”, inspired by the life of the Buddhist monk Xuan Zhang. Twelve films by the Taiwanese director will be shown. An opportunity for the public to discover or rediscover the cinema of Tsai Ming-Liang.

The director TSAI MING-LIANG has established Taiwanese cinema in the global landscape. His films have won numerous awards including the Golden Lion in Venice in 1994 for “Living Love” and the Silver Bear in 2004 for “The Taste of Watermelon”. His films “The Hole” (1998), “What time is it there? (2001) and “Visage” in 2009 were presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. He has recently started to produce a young generation of Asian filmmakers and continues to question his artistic practice by confronting theatre, visual arts and short films. GALERIES Cinéma and Kunstenfestivaldesarts are therefore pleased to invite TSAI MING LIANG to Brussels. The work of the Taiwanese artist will be presented in different aspects, cinema and live performance. For this exceptional double production, the life of the Buddhist monk Xuan Zang will be at the centre of the filmmaker’s inspiration. This travelling monk, translator and student is a little known figure in traditional China. Born in 602, Xuan Zang entered the monastery at the age of thirteen and became a monk at the age of twenty. He then set out to travel throughout China in search of sacred Buddhist texts. Dissatisfied with the misinterpretations and incomplete nature of existing Buddhist scriptures, he continued his journey to India. This 19-year journey was recounted in detail in the text that became a literary classic and made him famous: “Report of the Journey to the West in the Time of the Great Tang”. He also inspired the novel “The Journey to the West” written by Wu Cheng’en during the Ming Dynasty, more than nine centuries after his death. This historical figure inspired the series of “Walker” films that will be exhibited at GALERIES Cinéma, which Tsai himself says are rooted in the theatre. This is the meaning of this co-production in the two venues, since both gestures are nourished by the same inspiration. His favourite actors Lee Kang-sheng, Lu Yi-ching and Yang Kuei-mei are also present. The retrospective and the exhibition of the video installation project: “WALKER” will constitute the first part of this focus on Tsai Ming-Liang’s work. Composed of 6 autonomous films, including “No form”, “Walker”, “Diamond Sutra”, “Sleepwalk”, and “The Night”, this exhibition will be the first in a series of exhibitions. Sleepwalk”, and “A journey to the West”. These films will be reunited in a new set and put into space for the first time at GALERIES Cinéma. “With this series of films “Walker”, I want the viewer to meditate on this question: can seeing a man who walks, who is in movement but without a goal and without speaking, be considered a cinematographic work? (…) These films aim to allow the viewer to rethink their relationship to time and space in their daily lives. They are a way of taking the pulse of each place and bringing out its own rhythm, of taking its temperature in a way.” Tsai MING-LIANG In addition, the performance “THE MONK FROM TANG DYNASTY”, co-produced by Kunstenfestivaldesarts, will be created in situ in a secret location to be announced on 21 March, the date of the exhibition opening. “THE MONK FROM TANG DYNASTY” will then be presented in Vienna as part of the renowned Wiener Festwochen, which also co-produces the project. It depicts the life of the Buddhist monk Xuan Zang.