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Introduction of Ture Image

Author: Ivy Liu Translator: Ivy Liu proofread by Andrea Keller and Sachiel Yuu May,2012

The series entitled True Image, created by MadeIn Company, consists of a series of large-scale photographs. Among the artworks, appearing in these photos, are installations, sculptures and paintings, which have been produced by MadeIn Company as well. After being photographed, the original works were all completely destroyed. Concerning the names of these artworks, they all are excerpts of statements and speeches of Heidegger, Hegel and other philosophers as well as great men of the world history.

The creation concept of these works is a contribution to the discussion of what constitutes an artwork as examined by Walter Benjamin. The original idea has been stirred in these works. On one hand, these images are the documentation of artworks; and on the other hand, they make audiences doubt whether these originals really existed or have been fabricated. After all, the viewers can choose whether to trust the images or to deny the already non-existent truth. In the instants of creating this consciousness, every concept and motif within the process of artwork creation is shacked and the definition of artwork itself is endowed with more possibilities and dynamic.

When the products about contemporary artworks increase to the extent that one can only understand a work by seeing the original work and by being exposed to its "aura," then MadeIn Company asks what the actual difference remains between the artwork and its representation. By deliberately canceling out the boundary between the two categories, MadeIn Company categorically states that art has no more "aura". Since the birth of minimal and conceptual art, art began gradually with its dematerialization, it is not self-evident anymore that an artwork embodies art itself - making it immediately present and visible.  Recording of documentations and images become crucial “by-products” of conceptual and conceptualist art. As Boris Groys writes in his book, "Art documentation is by definition not art; it not only refers to art, but makes it in precisely this way clear that art, in this case, is no longer present and immediately visible, but rather absent and hidden." The series of works by MadeIn Company can be regarded as a direct challenge to this statement.

In this case, the real works were transformed in its documentation, with the boundary between the original works increasingly blurred. Until today, this ambiguity has been completely absorbed by exhibition production. But the contradiction is that this new approach has been diverted by the market and causes a capitalization of immateriality.  Art documentation before was about art space, now evolving into an art space; history and documentation in the past transferred the authors’ value, and changed its original artistic and economic position. These works by MadeIn Company bring us to think: there is no way of knowing if the actual artwork is its own documentation. It cancels itself out, both in form and concept.

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