Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Encyclopedia
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum is a museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

 in Taipei
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...

, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

. The museum first opened on December 24, 1983 at the former site of the United States Taiwan Defense Command
United States Taiwan Defense Command
The United States Taiwan Defense Command was a sub-unified command of the United States armed forces. It was originally formed as the Formosa Liaison Center . In November 1955, the FLC become the Taiwan Defense Command...

 (USTDC, dissolved in 1979). It was the first purpose built museum in Taiwan to host modern and contemporary art exhibitions. The architecture is a local adaption of the Japanese Metabolist Movement
Metabolist Movement
In the late 1950s a small group of young Japanese architects and designers joined forces under the title of "Metabolism". Their visions for cities of the future inhabited by a mass society were characterized by large scale, flexible, and expandable structures that evoked the processes of organic...

.

History

From 1984 until 1990, its most prestigious biennial exhibition was the "Trends of Modern Art in the R.O.C.", which promoted Chinese modernity in art, inviting chiefly artists with a R.O.C. passport or equivalent ancestry. This premier national competition- style exhibition was substituted in 1992 by the Taipei Biennial and the Taipei Prize. The Taipei Biennial introduced the idea of a curator-critic inviting senior and more accomplished artists, while the Taipei Prize continues to serve as a competition-style platform to discover young and unknown artists.

Since its opening, the mission of the TFAM was to promote both Chinese modern art and international exchange. Since its early years it has hosted numerous international exhibitions, often sponsored by foreign cultural institutions such as the British Institute or the Goethe Institut. The first exhibition to be sent abroad by the TFAM was held in Japan as "Message from Taipei" in 1989. One of the most prominent of these national exhibitions abroad was held in 1996 / 1997 in Aachen at the Museum Ludwig and in Berlin at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt
Haus der Kulturen der Welt
The Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin is Germany's national centre for contemporary non-European art. It presents art exhibitions, theater and dance performances, concerts, author readings, films and academic conferences on non-European Visual Art and culture...

 as "Taiwan: Kunst Heute".
Since the mid-1990s, the TFAM's mission changed to promoting a Taiwanese identity in contemporary art, most visibly by organizing a national Taiwanese Pavilion at the Venice Biennial, and by dedicating the Taipei Biennial to the question of Taiwanese identity. In 1996 the largest ever Taipei Biennial was held under the title "The Quest for Identity", involving 110 artists and all floors of the building.

Since 1995 the TFAM organizes the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...

, which from 1995 until 2000 was recognized as a national pavilion. Starting in 1997 China exerted diplomatic pressure against the use of the name "Republic of China", and by 2001 the TFAM's Taiwan Pavilion in Venice was relegated to the list of institutional participations, later on to the category of collateral events. Since the year 2000 the Taichung National Museum of Arts organizes a participation at Venice's architecture biennial. While the TFAM had been happy to represent "Taiwan", the Taichung National Museum of Art insisted on the use of the name "R.O.C.", which became the diplomatic deathknell to a national pavilion. The loss of an official national representation has inspired other museums in Taiwan to organize exhibitions at the Venice Biennale as well, such as the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in 2007, and MoCA Taipei in 2009.

Since 1998 the Taipei Biennial has become an international event, curated by an international star curator. The first experiment in Asian internationalization was led by Fumio Nanjo
Fumio Nanjo
is the director of the Mori Art Museum, and a graduate of Keio University.- References :...

 under the title Site of Desire in 1998. Since 2000 the international curator is invited to choose a local co- curator, who then selects five to six local artists to participate at Taiwan's most prestigious art event. After 2000, funding and institutional backing for the Taipei Biennial have been dwindling, both compared to other Asian Biennials as well as privately backed exbitions at the TFAM, regularly inciting criticism from the local art scene.

The TFAM has a rather interesting institutional history of interaction with the local art scene. In 1986 the first director, Su Rui-ping, had to step down after she had eliminated the installation of artist Zhang Jianfu from an "experimental" exhibition with her own feet, and in 1985 had a red metal sculpture called "Unlimited Minimalism" of Li Zai-qian repainted in silver. As a form of late justice, in 2006 a red sculpture called "Homerun" was permanently installed on the plaza facing the main entrance. In 1988 performance artist Lee Mingsheng was beaten up by museum guards when he brought a glass of his feces to a public discussion during the "World of Dada" exhibition, which also featured Duchamp´s famous urinal. In 1993 Lee became the first Taiwanese artist to be invited to the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...

. In 1995 newly appointed director Chang Chen-yu was forced to step down after months of protests of the art scene against his style of leadership and his use of museum funds. With the turn of the millennium and the growing professionalization of the art scene, this close-quarter relationship between the museum and the local art scene has considerably changed: at the 2004 Taipei Biennial, the statement of the local curator was eliminated from the official catalogue, without creating any major repercussions.

In 2001, the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (台北當代藝術館; MOCA Taipei) was established in the Taipei City government old building.

See also

  • National Taiwan Museum
    National Taiwan Museum
    National Taiwan Museum , established in 1908, is the oldest museum in Taiwan. It was set up by the colonial government during Japanese rule in Taiwan. It is located in Taipei.- History :Established in 1908, the museum is the oldest in Taiwan...

  • MoCA Taipei
    MoCA Taipei
    MoCA Taipei is a museum of contemporary art, located in Taipei, Taiwan.It was built during the period of Japanese rule in 1921 as Jan Cheng Elementary School, which now occupies a new structure on the back of the historical building.After WWII, it hosted the Taipei city government and became an...

  • Taipei Story House
    Taipei Story House
    Taipei Story House , old name Yuanshan Mansion , is a historic house in the Zhongshan District ofTaipei, Taiwan, now open as a museum.-Overview:The house was built in 1913–14 by Chen Chao-chun, a Dadaocheng tea merchant...

    , adjacent to TFAM

External links

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