Preface
Ping Lin Director of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum
A collection is a museum's spiritual and symbolic core, and following the daily emergence of new art forms and new developments in maintenance and preservation, the Museum continues to deepen the value and context of its collection. Moreover, through its programmatic approach to the acquisition of modern and contemporary artworks, the Museum continues to generate momentum serving the public interest. As of December 2019, the Museum has accumulated a total of 5,080 works that concretely manifest the unique and multifaceted dimension of art and spirit of our times.
This catalog provides a record of the Museum's forty-four acquisitions, including donations, in 2019. Newly collected items include fifteen photographs, two ink paintings, six multimedia works, twelve oil paintings, two sculptures, and seven watercolor paintings. Centered on the modern and contemporary art of Taiwan and guided by an acquisition policy emphasizing distinct periods in the professional evolution of individual artists, the Museum, after reviewing its holdings, endeavored to supplement its works by the watercolorist Ishikawa Kinichiro with Purple Mountains and Limpid Water According Book and Summer in the North, among others. The collected paintings reflect the artist's experiences traveling abroad at different points in his career and greatly aid in the empirical research of Taiwanese art history. The collection's holdings of mid-twentieth century photographer Deng Nan-Guang's works were supplemented with recent finds of late career masterworks created with a miniature camera and two experimental works that had never been publicly released. The Museum's Hsiao Ju-Sung collection was also increased with the acquisition of an important female portrait, and that of Ku Fu-Sheng with his tour de force Enchanted Garden. Also this year, following its exhibitions Hsia Yan: Journey to Art and Welding Poetry: Kao Tsan-Hsing Retrospective Exhibition, the Museum had the good fortune to add the representative works Picture of Zhou Chu Beheading a Dragon by Hsia Yan, and Deer and Ecocline by Kao Tsan-Hsing's to its collection. Furthermore, a milestone in the history of Taiwanese video art, Peng Hung-Chih's 2001 Face to Face, was acquired, representing an important step for the Museum collection.
Another of the Museum's missions is its continued interest in and support of recent generation artists who have achieved a certain degree of maturity in their work. To this end, the collection acquired Tsui Kuang-Yu's performance/video artwork The Shortcut to the Systematic Life: City Spirits (Taipei); Wang Ya-Hui's entry to the 2002 Taipei Biennial Gap, as well as her Traveler, and Question to Shadow #1, which mark different stages in the development of her video art; Wu Tung-Lung's magnificent Symbol-113, Symbol-118, and Symbol-119; and through the Museum's long-term bellwether of excellence, the Taipei Art Awards, works by Chen Ching-Yao, Lai Chiu-Chen, Chen Wan-Jen, and Chang Chia-Ying.
The Museum collection also received three precious donations in 2019. The first is a small ink painting by Hsia Yan based on the theme of “Zhou Chu Beheading a Dragon,” forming a set with the larger oil painting, Picture of Zhou Chu Beheading a Dragon, which was collected by the Museum this year. Next is Tsai Shiue-Shi's gouache painting Confucius Temple, Taipei, which was donated to the collection via the boundless enthusiasm of the public. The acquisition of this work once exhibited in the Fourth Taiwan Governor-General's Exhibition and currently in need of restoration is an example of how the Museum can preserve and maintain important works of art. The third is Yang Mao-Lin's large-scale sculpture Canonization of the Gods—The Wonderland in Saha World of Maha, which was generously donated by the senior collector Chao Su-Chien, and by establishing a collecting partnership with the Museum, has enhanced the Museum's collection of Yang Mao-Lin’s work.
In 2019, the Museum's magnificent collection continued to grow with important art assets for the people through the active participation of artists, galleries, private collectors, and private organizations. Furthermore, through professional preservation and maintenance, collection research, and education programming, the collection guards historical memories, brings art to life, and creates connections among all of us.
Contents
010 - WANG Ya-Hui (pdf)
016 - ISHIKAWA Kinichiro (pdf)
028 - WU Tung-Lung (pdf)
032 - HSIA Yan (pdf)
038 - KAO Tsan-Hsing (pdf)
042 - TSUI Kuang-Yu (pdf)
046 - CHANG Chia-Ying (pdf)
050 - CHEN Wan-Jen (pdf)
054 - CHEN Ching-Yao (pdf)
062 - PENG Hung-Chih (pdf)
066 - YANG Mao-Lin (pdf)
070 - TSAI Shiue-Shi (pdf)
074 - DENG Nan-Guang (pdf)
094 - HSIAO Ju-Sung (pdf)
098 - LAI Chiu-Chen (pdf)
104 - KU Fu-Sheng (pdf)