These forces are still active and continue to impact how Taiwan considers itself as a nation both locally and at an international level. Furthermore Taiwan's socio-politics between itself and China remain on-going and seem to remain in a continuous international deadlock. Ultimately though given the relationship between Taiwan and China, international partners welcome Taiwan's economic practice but often ignore its cultural activity in order not to offend China. It therefore these interactions that have limited the visibility of Taiwan's art at both an international level and through cultural exchange.

All of these factors again have contributed to how artists respond in Taiwan to the socio-political and cultural environments. The search for an appropriate aesthetic response and subject is complicated as compared to past experiences and social histories in Taiwan. Today, I believe Taiwanese artists are considering their practice and strategies in relation to the global art market in hopes this vocabulary is better understood while they interject their own ideologies into this structure. This movement or "positioning" relates a confidence Taiwanese artists have in regard their own identity - both past and present. In addressing and deconstructing Taiwanese art, thus, these complex and evolving states need to be considered as a subtext to the pictorial plane.

By staging four biennale programs to date, Taiwan is positioning itself as a provider of contemporary art within international art markets. The biennial has had positive benefits locally too, as Taiwanese artists and centers becoming active partners in delivery of this event. Likewise from a Taiwanese perspective, the biennial ironically reinforces Taiwan's binary history and immersion in both representing foreign and local ideologies within the institution. This strategy I will classify as "mutual cross-cultural positioning and pollinization." The Taipei Biennial is structured whereby an international and a local curator work to co-ordinate the exhibition. Like Taiwan's past, this binary structure of a foreign and local curator working together creates dynamics which further positions Taiwan's identity in the global market.

The first Taipei Biennial "Site of Desire" was curated by Fumio Nanjo of Japan and focused on Taiwan's relationship to Asia as implicity understood by the invitational countries - China, Japan and Korea. The exhibition "Site of Desire" addressed socio- economic developments which spurred rapid capital and cultural growth in the 1990s in Asia. This exhibition addressed both the influx of foreign capital and the shift at local centers responding to this economic revolution. Works exhibited at this event truly gave a sense of urgency and reflected on how the local was being changed. For instance, Chinese artist Cai Kuo-Qiang completely surrounded the Taipei Fine Arts museum with large billboards. Advertising various products where the art began and ended became a question the viewer had to negotiate when encountering this work. Taiwanese artist Wang Jun-jie, on the other hand, deconstructed infomercials and product placement by creating a media installation and series of objects for sale at the museum. Wang Jun-jie's product placements in the museum reflected upon hyper-consumerism as a mean to deconstruct the media phenomenon associated with high capitalism. This work also served as a metaphor expressing Taiwan's inevitable progression forward into a post-industrial/media age. Chen Chieh-jen presented in this exhibition, digital photographs which reflected on historical gaps in the visual record about post-colonialism. Another exhibiting Taiwanese artist, Wu Ma-li presented works about the social; whereas, Wu Tian-Chang and Hou Chun-ming exhibited works drawn from everyday social realities and reinforced concepts of what the Taiwanese call "kitsch culture." The Biennial theme "Site of Desire" was well considered in this exhibition, addressing the socio and economic conditions of rapid growth within Asia through media and consumer strategies.

The 2000 Biennial continued to be dominated by installation works. Jerome Sans from France in conjunction with Manray Hsu from Taiwan curated the second biennial. Like its former incarnation, works exhibited in 2000 continued to express a playfulness through fanciful installations. Most Taiwanese artists in this exhibition, unlike the first, were no longer interested in social political concerns and instead focused on human relationships between information delivery and interactivity. Hong Tung-lu produced a series of light boxes. For this work, the artist used Japanese video game characters positioned in front of well known images drawn from Western art historical sources. The video game characters stand attentive to the future, leaving the past behind. This artwork, seemingly simple, depicts a new imposition of how art is delivered through new media. Furthermore the adoption of Japanese game characters by Hong Tame characters by Hong Tung-lu is a reflection of Taiwan's current popular cultural interests.