Starting from today, the Artist Archive of Taichung City is holding “Spring Rain & Fresh Green: A Permanent Exhibition on the Collections of Taichung City Seaport Art Center” in which genuine works of senior artists that are collected by Taichung City Seaport Art Center are exhibited. We welcome all citizens to pay a visit and admire these glamorous collections.
Taichung City has a comprehensive historical heritage regarding the development of arts. Between the 1900’s and 1920’s, artists who grew up taking Japanese education, such as Liao Chi-chun, Chen Hui-kun, Lee Shih-chiaou, Yeh Huo-cheng, Lin Chih-chu and others are known as the “first generation artists brought up under the Japanese Colonial Era”, influenced the future development of Taiwan’s arts on the number of artists and their talents, and gave Taichung City the reputation of “Cultural City”.
Entering the 1930’s, more people dedicated in art creation followed the footsteps of their predecessors. Some went abroad to obtain new knowledge, while others seek wisdom from the seniors. With the introduction of new concepts and the changing age, the art development of Taiwan by the time was filled with new images. New concepts and skills permeated into the soil of arts like spring rains and new sprouts of artists emerged during the 1930’s and 1940’s at central Taiwan. Despite being at an age of turbulence, they insisted on the pursuit of aesthetics and displayed great vitality.
The opening ceremony of the exhibition took place on May 1st and it was filled with many well-known figures in which many senior artists of Taichung City participated in it. When making the opening remarks, Director Wang said that although the Artist Archive of Taichung City is located at the second floor of the Art Center, it contains great energy. Twenty pieces of genuine works by Taichung City’s senior artists that are collected by the Art Center will be exhibited in this exhibition and is a warm-up for the opening of the future Taichung City Art Museum in 2020. Director Wang stated that when people mentioned Taichung as a Cultural City, they rarely see it from the perspective of arts. However, the artists of Taichung City have symbolic roles and status among the first generation Taiwanese artists after Westernization and are a vital chapter on the historical development of arts in Taiwan. The director also announced in advance that “Taichung Arts Map” is planned to be published this year to explore the relation of city and culture from the perspective of arts. The center also arranged a “Taking Famous Painting with You: Decoupage DIY Experience” activity at the opening ceremony, allowing participants to paste napkins with great art works (including “Specimen and Woman” by Mr. Tseng Wei-chih and “Tulip” by Mr. Wang Shou-ying) with Decoupages techniques on canvas bags so that they can take these masterpieces while enjoying this DIY experience.
This “Spring Rain & Fresh Green: A Permanent Exhibition on the Collections of Taichung City Seaport Art Center” will exhibit the genuine works of senior artists including Chen Hui-kun, Lin Bo-shou, Yang Chi-tong, Lin You-te, Yeh Huo-cheng and others and willed be organized as a permanent exhibition. We welcome all citizens to pay a visit to these glamorous masterpieces and feel the enduring creative spirits of these senior artists.