展覽史資料庫

  Combine and Install “New Painting”: Taiwan Art in the Bienal de São Paulo (1957-1973) examines the inclusion of Taiwanese artists in 9 editions of Bienal de São Paulo, spanning 17 years from the 4th Bienal in 1957 to the 12th Bienal in 1973, its selection process administered by the National Museum of History (hereinafter referred to as “NMH”). This is one of the very few cases in Taiwan art history in its representation of the nation, uninterrupted participation in an exhibition held in a foreign country, its history and the extensive number of its participants. The research focuses on this, and includes works and archives, catalogues, museum and ministerial archives, press clippings, and primary source materials comprising artist manuscripts and letters, exploring the period style and subjectivity of art in this era.

In the 9 editions of combat at Bienal de São Paulo over the course of 17 years, connection was established between NMH and the Embassy in Brazil, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Education as support and coordination. Four organizations working parallel in pairs, a long-distance conveyor of modernity and nationalism, with dedicated personnel and two goals: “preventing communist bandits from interfering,” and promoting national culture. In order to occupy the subject position of “China” in a prestigious biennale of the world, the state apparatus gradually adjusted its curatorial direction and recruited “modern art” encouraged by the Bienal de São Paulo.

Summarizing the styles of works selected and included in the Bienal, from the replicated Chinese antiquities of NMH imitated by painters, and shifting to Bienal “New Extremism” guidelines relayed by the Embassy, to the acceptance of traditional folk abstract art, and onto the large, multi-panel composites, combining modernity and nationalism, forging the main form of period style in this era. From the perspective of cultural politics, if abstract expressionism is the product of Cold War and McCarthyism, a propaganda tool for the free world against the Iron Curtain, then Taiwan abstract painting was the continuously experimental and progressing artistic instrument extended from the Chinese Civil War between Kuomintang Nationalists (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to diplomatic battlefields. Artistic expressions of “bold vigor” and “noble sublimity” were not just simple reflections of the artist’s spirit, but under the state apparatus, a product of “new extremism” and “combine and install” selection guidelines.

The significance in NMH’s involvement is not purely the nature of competition acknowledged by commentators, but a sponsored display organized under complex political confrontation and policy demands, while the style of “Modern Chinese Painting” commenters often allude to and the composite installations in latter years can be described as having multiple visual metaphors: regarded as windows to lookout onto international contemporary art style in domestic previews, while at the exhibition venue at São Paulo, these styles become a screen in dividing operating spaces of politics and diplomacy. During later exhibitions with large, multi-panel combined installations, the styles act as mirrors refracting the modernity of painting and its image of subjectivity, while also shielding the phenomenon of overseas contemporary art. So, is the reflection in the mirror or screen our reality? Perhaps this is the inquiry that researchers must continuously return to in the face of period style and subjectivity of the times.