Li Yi-Fan's Screen Melancholy Opens in Rotterdam
The hour-long game-engine installation, Taiwan's collateral event at the Venice Biennale, stays at the Palazzo delle Prigioni
- When
- Through Nov. 22, 2026
- Where
- Palazzo delle Prigioni, Castello 4209, Venice
- When
- Jan. 22 to April 11, 2027
- Where
- Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam
Screen Melancholy is a 60-minute video installation by the Taiwanese artist Li Yi-Fan, organized by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and curated by Raphael Fonseca. It is at the Palazzo delle Prigioni in Venice through Nov. 22 as a collateral event of the Venice Biennale. On Jan. 22, 2027, it opens at the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam, its first stop after Venice.
On a large LED screen, a digital figure plays a filmmaker making a film about talking organs and directs a cast of digital actors like marionettes. The action is set in a digital reconstruction of the Palazzo delle Prigioni, a former prison. Around the screen sit large 3D-printed sculptures of the artist's own hands, feet, arms and legs, and visitors can sit on them.
It is the third work Li has made using a game engine to produce images, according to the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. The Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, where Li was a resident from 2024 to 2026, describes the method as "a custom-built game engine puppetry toolkit." Li told ArtAsiaPacific the work "asks how we begin to understand the real structure of a screen."
Killscreen counted exactly two playable games at this year's Venice Biennale.
Installation views of Screen Melancholy at the Palazzo delle Prigioni, Venice, 2026. Courtesy the Taipei Fine Arts Museum
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