古今东西人们往往有一种愿望：透过身体变化，完成自己内在心灵的慾望。此展览所讨论的变身并非宗教意义或者小说的想像，而是以身体为主题发展，并透过「启蒙之始」、「情艺之争」、「权力规训」、「集体凝视」及「流变之身」五大展区，分别探讨东方的身体观、艺术与情色的界线、权力、观看及跨界的身体，一探「身体」于二十世纪以来的艺术新貌，以及美术发展脉络中身体表现各种历程的重要课题与挑战。
People across time and geography often have this kind of wish: fulfill their inner desire on their mind through bodily changes.  The transformation discussed in this exhibition is not of religious meaning or fictional imagination, but developed with body as the theme. The five galleries, i.e. Dawn of Enlightenment, Struggle of Eroticism and Art, Power Discipline, Collective Gaze, and Body of Evolution, delve into the eastern view of body, the line between art and eroticism, power, viewing, and interdisciplinary body, respectively. Hence, the exhibition probes into the new artistic outlooks of “body” since the 20^th century as well as the important topics and challenges across the processes of body presentation in the context of art development.

现代法国思想家傅柯(Michel Foucault)提出的「生命权力」(biopouvoir, biopower)成为我们策展的思想根源，同时也回应于现今发生于台湾的「#MeToo」（#我也是）运动。这种生命权力不同于联合国宣言中的「生命权」(Right to life)，傅柯所提到「生命权利」具备体制反省、文化、哲学、心理学的综合意义。他认为人一出生，就时时受到时间、空间、政治制度、社会习俗以及文化等看得见或者看不见的东西所部署(deployment, apparatus)、所规训(discipline)。而构成规训背后存在一种不同于柏拉图所说的超越时间、空间的真理的「知识型」(epistémè, episteme)；相对于此，这种「知识型」构成对于人们认知、判断、身体行为的规训，使得人在不知不觉中被行为模式、思想模式、甚而生理反应限制，那是压抑、控制、被观看然而却不自知的可怕的生命权利。我们的肉体以及内在心灵受到规训而不自知，整个社会都是一种制约个体的存在。生命权力借由特定的权力，介入且操控我们的身体，国家是一部大型控制的机械。生存于现代社会的个体，只有透过揭露控制我们的权力结构，才能使个体获得自由。
Biopouvoir (biopower) proposed by the modern French thinker, Michel Foucault, serves the source of our curatorial thinking, while in response to the #MeToo movement happening now in Taiwan. This biopower is different from the “right to life” as stated in the UN Declaration. The “biopower” described by Foucault comes with the integral meaning of system reflection, culture, philosophy, and psychology. He was convinced that humanity is constantly subject to the deployment or apparatus of, or discipline of, time, space, political system, social customs, culture, and anything visible or invisible. What lies underneath discipline is an epistémè (episteme), which is different from the truth beyond time and space claimed by Plato. In comparison, such episteme constitutes the discipline for people’s knowledge, judgement, and physical behaviors, placing people in the constraints of behavioral patterns, thinking patterns, and even physiological responses unconsciously. That is a horrific biopower of oppression, control, and being viewed without self-aware. We are disciplined, body and mind, without the knowledge thereof. The society as a whole is an existence that keeps individuals in check. Biopower intervenes and controls our bodies through specific powers. A state is one colossal apparatus for control. Only through exposing the power structure that has control over us can individuals living in the modern society be free.

台湾美术发展中对于身体的描写，经历了许多的历程。天上维纳斯的西方身体发展在整体发展脉络当中，紧密地与神圣的力量紧密相关。古代希腊罗马时代的身体观，以理想美为依归，寻求普遍的美感。基督宗教时期的身体观，身体是神的被造物，展现一种对于无限存在的身心淬鍊与永恒的追求。文艺复兴以后的古典主义回归古希腊罗马时代的身体美学，古典主义的身体观建立在超越现实个体的普遍理想美上面。近代身体的甦醒出自于浪漫主义以后的个性美的发现，存在者自觉的身体观成为近代身体的基础。漫长的西方艺术流传到东方，东方的身体观紧密地与礼法社会结合在一起，身体的存在感即是社会价值观的显示。西方艺术传布到东方，江户时代的兰学逐渐汲取西方的身体的观看方式，明治维新之后聘请意大利画家担任工部美术学校教师、派遣留学生前往欧洲学习艺术。日本殖民时期西方身体观念透过日本的美术学校教育、美术展览活动，成为台湾美术时期的身体美学。我们看到日本油画重要画家黑田清辉的「智情意」三连作，足以看到西方人的身体观被融入日本的美学当中，细腻的线条如同一种规训那样深深地刻划在这三位裸体的身上，那是来自于东方历史悠久的毛笔线条。殖民时期的人物，不是纠结在人体美上，而是一种人存在于社会制约下的集体存在感。台湾美术萌芽时期的身体观照入径，学院的古典美学的基底成为身体美感的观照方式。
The body portrayal in the art development of Taiwan went through several stages. The development of the western body of Venus in heaven has been intimately associated with divine power in the whole development context. The ancient Greco-Roman view of body adhered to the ideal beauty in quest of universal beauty. In the view of body during the era of Christianity, a body is a creation of God, demonstrating the pursuit of perpetual purification and immortality for body and mind. Classicalism after the Renaissance returned to the ancient Greco-Roman body aesthetics. The body in the view of classicalism is grounded on the universal, ideal beauty beyond individuals in reality. The awakening of modern body emerged from the post-romanticism discovery of personal beauty, where an existence’s conscious view of body laid the foundation of the modern body. The western art with a long history flowed to the East. The view of body in the East had been closely tied with etiquette and society, as the existence of body made the manifestation of social value. The western art spread to the East. Rangaku (the Dutch learning) in the Edo Period absorbed the western view of body bit by bit. After the Meiji Restoration, Italian painters were invited to serve as the teachers in the Technical Fine Arts School, and students were sent to Europe to learn art. The western notion of body became the body aesthetics in the fine art period of Taiwan through the Japanese fine art school education and exhibitions during the Japanese Rule. From the three-piece work, Wisdom, Impression, Sentiment, of the eminent Japanese oil painter KURODA Seiki, we can observe the incorporation of the western view of body into the aesthetics of Japan. The delicate lines are deeply carved onto the three nudes like a kind of discipline, which were born from the brush of the East with a long history. The portraits during the colonial period, instead of fixated with the beauty of human body, manifest the collective sense of human existence under social conditioning. As the entry for body viewing in the budding stage of art in Taiwan, the foundation of classical aesthetics of academy became the mean to viewing body beauty.

国府来台初期，身体的呈现以纪念碑式的崇高美感为主轴，人物或者说身体处于这个时期，具备高度被规训或者说是制约化的个体存在，这种感觉构成时代的基本特质。来自大陆的画家与台湾艺术家虽是受到不同政治权力下的规训，却也逐渐共同创造出时代的身体美学，这个阶段的人体美观主要以肖像逐渐发展成为美的身体观照。身体美在学院固然成为描绘的对象，但是却依然以肖像、裸体之间的纪念、隐喻、物化的手法，艺术与情色之间成为当时的一大话题。
In the early days of nationalist government’s relocation to Taiwan, body was presented with sublime beauty in the modern monument style at the core. Figures or bodies in this period are individual existences, highly disciplined or conditioned. Such sentiment made up the basic quality of the time. The painters from Mainland China and the Taiwanese artists, although subject to discipline of varied political power, gradually and collectively developed the body aesthetics of the time, during which the view of human body’s beauty mainly evolved from portrait into the body viewing of beauty. The beauty of body naturally became a subject for portrayal in academies, yet still in the manners of memory, metaphor, and objectification among portraits and nudes, nevertheless. Art versus eroticism made a huge topic of the time.

社会、国家制度是对于每个个体内在与身体的控制与介入，成为身体的规训。台湾战后的最大的全面控制是戒严体制。台湾身体美学发展在1980年代民主运动朝向新的面向发展，一种传统威权体制与多元价值的制度产生对抗，解严是政治议题，同样也是艺术课题。街头运动的冲撞、对抗以及暴力形式，另一方面则以女性主义方向省思性别的历史传统，背后有压抑与男女性差异的时代包袱，传统男女价值观开始产生变化。身体被压抑的同时，透过揭露身体或者身体行为表现为对制度的抗争。男性的观看这种角度转变为女性身体的自我观看与解构，解严使得身体观看更加多元而复杂。规训与被规训化、隐蔽与暴露、权力屈服与压抑，女性艺术家自我展现身体的奥秘与多元性。
The social and national systems constitute the control and intervention of each individual, internally and bodily, as the discipline of body. The largest post-war total control in Taiwan was the martial law system. The body aesthetics in Taiwan evolved towards new frontiers during the democratic movement in the 1980s. It was a confrontation between the system of traditional authoritarianism and the system of multivalence. The lifting of the martial law was a political agenda as much as an art subject. Along with the forms of collisions, confrontations, and violences in street movements, the historical tradition of gender was reflected upon towards feminism. What lied beneath was the burden of the time in oppression and male-female differences. Changes began to occur to the traditional value of men and women. While bodies were oppressed, the struggle with system was presented via body exposure or body behaviors. The perspective of male gaze was shifted to the self-viewing and deconstruction of female body. The martial law lifting added more diversity and complexity to body viewing. Betwixt discipline and disciplined, concealment and exposure, as well as power submission and oppression, female artists display the mystery and diversity of body on their own account.


身体从外在行为以及内部心灵都因为教育、制度以及文化而受到制约。因此，为了挣脱制约，必须揭露控制身体的所在制度，叙说自己身体经验。个体受到压抑或者碰触甚而侵扰的不安、压抑成为自我救赎与解放所有体制的重要手段之一。科技的介入使得身体趋向生命与复制生命的焦虑，复制、增殖成为二十一世纪身体发展的重要历程。身体成为社会制度与体制基于知识型所规训的存在，以艺术获得身体自由的发展随着历史不断变迁。揭露控制权力结构或者述说自身的身体经验，正是台湾经历千禧年后的最大一场身心解放运动。
Body is conditioned by means of education, system, and culture in terms of external behaviors and internal mind. Hence, to unshackle the conditioning, it is necessary for one to expose the system that controls body and to recount their body experience. The disturbance or oppression owing to repression or touch or even intrusion experienced by individuals come to be the vital means to self-redemption and liberation of all systems. The intervention of technology has driven body towards the anxiety with life and life cloning, as cloning and proliferation become the critical processes of body development in the 21^st century. Body has grown into an existence disciplined by social system and institution on the basis of episteme. The free development of body gained from art is constantly evolving over the course of history. Exposing the controlling power structure or recounting one’s own body experience is precisely the greatest liberation movement for body and mind after the Millenium in Taiwan.