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Transformation 2012 will screen on a loop in Cinema B between 10.30am – 4.30pm on Sat 16, Sun 17, Sat 23 & Sun 24 Nov 2024.

Commissioned in 2012 by the Beijing Normal University Art Museum, Tsai Ming-liang’s Transformation (also known as Metamorphosis) takes place across five shots. The camera stares unblinkingly at Lee Kang-sheng as he is silently made-up, before cutting to Yang Kuei-mei (star of Vive L’Amour 1994) as she, too, is attended to by the darting hands of make-up artists. Yang, dressed in resplendent red, is then seen entering a room to observe the body of Lee, now dressed in a mid-century suit scarred by bullet holes and dried blood. His image fades into a post-mortem photograph of the Taiwanese artist and politician Tan Teng-pho, who was killed in the ‘228 Incident’ – an infamous political massacre in Taiwan – in 1947. This work represents a rare moment of direct historical political engagement for Tsai, drawing strands of art, cinema and history together into one mesmerising work of video portraiture.