Shu Lea Cheang’s 3x3x6, Taiwan’s Representation at the Venice Biennale 2019 Announces Exhibition Overview and Public Program

3x3x6 Exhibition Overview
May 11 – November 24, 2019
Tuesday – Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Also open on May 13, September 2, and November 18, 2019.
Palazzo delle Prigioni (Castello 4209, San Marco, Venice)
3x3x6.com

Public Program
The Failures of Electronic Discipline: A Symposium of Gender and Sexual Outlaws
May 11, 2019, 4–7 p.m.
Psychiatric Hospital Museum of San Servolo (Isola di San Servolo, 30100 Venice)

Taipei Fine Arts Museum will present 3x3x6 as Taiwan’s representation at the Venice Biennale 2019. Curated by Paul B. Preciado, the exhibition features artist Shu Lea Cheang’s brand-new commissioned project 3x3x6. The exhibition at the Palazzo delle Prigioni will be on view from May 11–November 24, 2019; opening hours are from Tuesday to Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., and also on May 13, September 2, and November 18, 2019. Guided tours will be available twice a day during opening hours from May 11– August 27, 2019.

With the exhibition venue’s former function in mind, Cheang has named the artwork “3x3x6” in reference to today’s standardized architecture of industrial imprisonment: a 9-square-meter prison cell constantly monitored by six cameras. Here she creates an immersive, multidimensional installation, turning the space into a total surveillance apparatus. Cheang has also developed short films about 10 cases of subjects imprisoned or ostracized for reasons connected to their gender, sexuality or race. 3x3x6 stimulates reflection on different technologies used to confine and control society, and also questions the legal and visual regimes that have formed sexual and gender norms over time.

A publication with new critical essays by Preciado, Matthew Fuller, Dean Spade, and Jackie Wang on Cheang’s work will complement the exhibition. On May 11, Cheang and Preciado will host the public program “The Failures of Electronic Discipline: A Symposium of Gender and Sexual Outlaws.” Taking place at the historic site of the Psychiatric Hospital Museum on the island of San Servolo, which was until the 1970s an institution of confinement for the so-called mentally ill, the event will involve critics, academics, and writers, including Fuller and Jack Halberstam, as well the performers who embodied the characters in the film series of 3x3x6. The event is to become a queer performative encounter of dissidents of the patriarchal and colonial regime, with free admission to all. For more information, please visit: www.taiwaninvenice.org