Booth F07
Kiang Malingue is pleased to present Tao Hui's latest film Being Wild at Frieze Seoul. Premiered in January 2022, the single-channel video further develops the artist's decade-long interest in the figure of the diva-flâneur, surveying natural and artificial environments in the post-pandemic era. Also on view at the solo presentation is a series of photographs inspired by the video artwork.
In Being Wild, a young woman acts as both the protagonist and the narrator, roller skating across diverse sites: a college town, an old paper mill, a film studio and a central business district. Strolling on the empty streets, the soloist sings to songs from the 1980s by Taiwanese folk singers Tai Zhao-Mei, and Wang Hai-Ling. The melancholy lyrics echo with the light-hearted, unstrained script composed by Tao Hui, narrating in the artist's signature style an affectionate, nostalgic yearning that directly addresses the viewer. The protagonist abruptly breaks down towards the end of the film, revealing a hysterical sincerity that summarises a period that is at once desperate and hopeful.
Roller skating becomes popular in mainland China in the 1980s, reaching its height as the 3rd Asian Roller Skating Championship takes place in Hangzhou in 1989. Tao Hui sets Being Wild — named after one of Tai Zhao-Mei's melodious hits — in scenes that appear frequently in Chinese soap operas, employing roller skating as a metaphor for the speed of the era. However marginalised, individuals may map the city with their bodily presence in motion, negotiating the rhythm of life, at once confined and televised. Tao Hui: "I remember roller skating as a kind of sport that is very hopeful. If you are fast enough, you'd feel that you have reached a certain level, seeing things you usually cannot see and were previously unknown to you. It feels like going beyond time." Orating and singing directly into the camera, the motivating, caring protagonist breaks down and cries towards the end of the film, repeating hysterically the cryptic yet viral phrase of "yasimola". Torn open for but just a moment is an anachronism: time finally catches up as one falls, and returns one to a reality in which care and self-care practises manifest as tribulations.