Welcome to White Fungus

Apichatpong Weerasethakul + Chai Siris, “Sunshower”, 2017. Mixed media. Installation view: SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now, The National Art Center, Tokyo / Mori Art Museum, 2017. Photo: Kioku Keizo. Photo courtesy: Mori Art Museum, Tokyo

So why should we want a paradigm of Asian art anyway?

Feature Article

So why should we want a paradigm of Asian art anyway?

David Frazier charts the growth of inter-Asian dialogue and networks in the art world amidst the fissures of globalization and a still-dominant Western paradigm for viewing art.

Subverting the Voice of God

Feature Article

Subverting the Voice of God

Troubling Materiality in Nicholas Thoburn’s Anti-Book

Nicholas Thoburn's "Anti-Book" is a 'book' that interrogates the book-form. In his critique of this beloved commodity, Thoburn challenges our understanding of books as transcendent moral and aesthetic objects unsullied by commerce. Rather, he says, books are pulsing with capitalist relations. Thoburn proposes instead a "communism of textual matter". White Fungus editor Ron Hanson has been corresponding with Thoburn and, in the first of a series of articles based on this communication, introduces Thoburn's concept of the anti-book and its historical precedents.

Max Richter and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) performing Sleep at Spring Studios, New York, 2018. Photos Mike Terry.

To Sleep, Perchance to Hear

Feature Article

To Sleep, Perchance to Hear

An Inquiry Concerning the Possibilities and Vagaries of Listening to Music while Sleeping — with Testimonial Consideration by Composers and Practitioners in the Field

Kurt Gottschalk attended a New York performance of Max Richter's SLEEP, in which audience members are invited to stay overnight at a concert, slowing down to share a collective, somatic experience of music. Gottschalk reported on the experience for White Fungus. Speaking to other composers on the topic, and revisiting historic works, he extended his inquiry to consider at length this different process of listening.

Strange Days on Lake Rotomahana

Feature Article

Strange Days on Lake Rotomahana

The End of the Pink and White Terraces

New Zealand's Pink and White Terraces were dubbed the "8th wonder of the world." But in 1886, in a single night of volcanic destruction, they were forever lost to the world. Tim Bollinger wrote about the Terraces and their storied history for White Fungus.

Cover art by Clayton Welham from Emptyset LP Bossoms, 2019

Uncanny Processes

Feature Article

Uncanny Processes

Emptyset Embrace Alien Logic in the Making of Blossoms

Fast-advancing AI technologies are throwing our notions of authorship and creativity again into flux. In creating their seventh album, Blossoms, the electronic music duo Emptyset created a machine-learning system to interpret their back catalog and recordings of improvisations. The musicians sought to identify results beyond mimicry and which constituted unique sonic expressions in and of themselves. What emerged was a bizarre, alien logic. Tobias Fischer interviewed the duo about the process.

Lin Chi-Wei, "Tape Music", simplified Chinese version, 2012, photo by Damien Owen Trainor

Reawakening the Killing-Tone

Feature Article

Reawakening the Killing-Tone

The Sound Art of Lin Chi-Wei

Lin Chi-Wei is a key member of the pioneering generation of Taiwanese noise/sound artists that emerged in the 1990s. Lin has made landmark contributions as a writer, performer, artist, and member of Z.S.L.O (Zero Sound Liberation Organization). In Lin’s Tape Work, the artist sits in the center of the audience and unfurls a tape of ribbon or paper upon which characters are hand-printed or embroidered. Passed hand to hand through the crowd, each audience member/participant vocalizes the succession of phonetic symbols. The result is the creation of a multi-headed human tape machine. In the Taiwanese-language version of the work, Lin reactivates the “killing tone” or (Rù tone 入聲) from the medieval Chinese seven-tone system.

Street scenes in front of the Legislative Yuan and surrounding area during the 520 Farmers Protest (520農民運動),Taipei, 1988. Photos Leon Tsai (蔡文祥).

Wasteland Utopia

Feature Article

Wasteland Utopia

The Liberation of Sound in Post–Martial Law Taiwan

Noise music in Taiwan emerged in the 1990s, a tumultuous period of social upheaval following the lifting of 38 years of martial law. In the frenzied atmosphere of street clashes and political demonstrations, artists explored previously taboo subjects and experimented with radical forms. It was in this context that Taiwan's noise movement was born. Jeph Lo witnessed the evolution and reflects on that messy but protean time. His article is accompanied by photographs of political demonstrations of the period by Leon Tsai and Tsai Ming-Te.

Double Knowledge

Feature Article

Double Knowledge

In Conversation with Carolee Schneemann

In one of her last major interviews, Carolee Schneemann spoke to White Fungus editor Ron Hanson and looked back on her life, stretching back to her early childhood drawings and adolescent adventures in Mexico.

Hell is the Main Attraction

Feature Article

Hell is the Main Attraction

A Photo Essay by Yao Jui-Chung

In this series of wide-angle polaroids, Yao Jui-Chung photographs Madou Temple's animatronic religious display and other similar depictions of hell from throughout Taiwan and Singapore.

Making the Stones Sing

Feature Article

Making the Stones Sing

On the Centenary of Paul Celan

Paul Celan is often called the greatest of postwar European poets. Barry Schwabsky looks back on Celan's life and work following the 100th anniversary of the poet's birth, and the 50th of his death.

Spin into Being

Feature Article

Spin into Being

The Art of Melati Suryodarmo

Kyra Kordoski speaks to performance artist Melati Suryodarmo and dives into her deep corpus of durational works.

“Celebrations for the 9th anniversary of the People’s Republic”, Beijing, 1 October 1958

The Divisive Moment

Feature Article

The Divisive Moment

After 70 years, Henri Cartier-Bresson almost goes back to China

Henri Cartier-Bresson's photographs of the last days of the Chinese Civil War were exhibited at Taipei Fine Arts Museum in late 2020. The exhibition was scheduled to be held in Beijing in 2021 but was canceled due to COVID-19. David Frazier writes about the exhibition and its complicated surrounding context.

Human to Human

Feature Article

Human to Human

An Interview with Jeff Mills

Tobias Fischer speaks to techno pioneer Jeff Mills.

Kalisolaite ‘Uhila, “Pigs in the Yard”, 2011, documentation of performance, Aotea Square Performance Arcade, Auckland

The Pig and Its Friend

Feature Article

The Pig and Its Friend

Kalisolaite ʻUhila's Iconic Performance Work

Kalisolaite ‘Uhila is a Tongan performance artist based in New Zealand. In his 2011 work "Pigs in the Yard", 'Uhila challenged western notions and treatment of the pig. In traditional Tongan culture, the pig is sacred. 'Uhila's performance afforded pigs this reverence while challenging audiences to reappraise their relationship to these sentient creatures.

Bárbara Wagner_Benjamin de Burca_2017_Estás Vendo Coisas

you're subverting things

Feature Article

you're subverting things

the music video as an agent of empowerment in the works of bárbara wagner and benjamin de burca

The Brazil-based artist duo Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca produce films blurring the lines between fiction and documentary. Collaborating with their performers, often figures on the margins, the duo creates works that raise notions of visibility, self-representation, and subversion of dominant cultural forms. Marcella Faustini spoke to the artists and wrote about their work.

Pavel Pepperstein, ”Three old men talking and the Broken suprema”, 2015.

Once Upon a Time

Feature Article

Once Upon a Time

The Timeless Worlds of Pavel Pepperstein

Roger Boyce interviews Pavel Pepperstein for White Fungus. The enigmatic Russian painter of hallucinatory landscapes is also known as a writer, critic, art theorist, fashion designer, and rapper.

Down, down, under and below?

Feature Article

Down, down, under and below?

Questions and Appearances with Curran Hatleberg

Joseph del Pesco presents photographer Curran Hatleberg with a series of questions to which the artist responds with images.

Translating the Personal

Feature Article

Translating the Personal

The Music, Noise and Voice of Charmaine Lee

Kurt Gottschalk speaks to Charmaine Lee about her ever-expanding musical practice.

Slavs and Tatars, "A Monobrow Manifesto", 2011. Screen print on balloons, installation view at the Sharjah Biennale, 2011. Courtesy of The Third Line, Dubai. Photo: Elizabeth Rappaport.

A Kind of Circuity

Feature Article

A Kind of Circuity

An Interview with Slavs and Tatars

Nicola Trezzi interviewed Slavs and Tatars about topics ranging from pickles to the collective's embrace of antithetical thought.

Ghosts, Radio Waves, Spiritualism and Contextualism in the Art of Aki Onda

Feature Article

Ghosts, Radio Waves, Spiritualism and Contextualism in the Art of Aki Onda

Kurt Gottschalk talks to Aki Onda about channelling the spirit of Nam June Paik.

Listening to Tagaloa

Feature Article

Listening to Tagaloa

Channelling the Oceanic God’s Voice in the Work of Paula Schaafhausen

Leafa Wilson writes about Paula Schaafhausen's installation series Ebbing Tagaloa, featuring Tagaloa (Polynesian God of the Ocean) figures molded from coconut oil and sand.