Chen Chieh-jen is currently the most renowned contemporary Taiwanese artist, participating in numerous worldwide art biennals and exhibitions. Firstly, this paper will narrate how Chen managed to become an artist, while, at the same time, an anylysis of Taiwan´s sociopolitical and cultural history will be presented. The analysis will be from an unusual viewpoint: that of Taiwanese contemporary art, a field of study marginalized by Western Scholars in Taiwanese Studies. The testimonies of its protagonists, Taiwanese artists, will also be included. Secondly, the lifting of a 40 year period of martial law in 1987 symbolizes the kickoff point for the development of contemporary Taiwanese art. Chen Chieh-jen, as many other Taiwanese artists, participated in this process. making use of his body to state his sociopolitical stance. This paper will demonstrate how the body became one of the main focal points in contemporary art in Taiwan. Having been hidden by censorship, the body was turned into an instrument of political condemnation, an even a key element in the local claim of Taiwanese identity. And finally, we will analyze how Chen Chien-jen developed his own artistic interpretation of the body, beginning with his political performances and moving onto the recovery of his personal identity and story through the medium of his black and white photographic series.
Management of foreign-currency household debt in Romania in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 had the effect of deepening pre-2008 class disparities and treated debtor categories differently according to their income. In this article we contribute to the debate on subaltern financialisation by showing how post-crisis credit and housing policies contributed to the fact that today different debtor groups (i.e. by type of credit but also by time of lending) find themselves at opposing ends of the political spectrum based on different class alliances, with those who benefited from the crisis-management polices positioning themselves against those who were the ‘losers’ under these same policies.