「Flowers of Immense Charm - A Masterpiece Exhibition by Four Major Museums」is organized under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Taichung City Government with the collaborations of National Palace Museum, Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, CHIMEI Museum, and National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts to conduct the event from 6th October at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition will have 168 selected「flower」themed artworks and 20 Taiwanese artists are invited to join in the event with their fine artworks. Today(27th), parts of the exhibited artworks are firstly introduced to the general public, including the pieces of painting, craft, sculpture, space decoration and new media art etc. diverse artworks are presented to invite people to visit and enjoy. The exhibition period will last until 10th February of next year.

「Flowers of Immense Charm - A Masterpiece Exhibition by Four Major Museums」opening press conference has been held at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts today. Deputy Minister of Ministry of Culture, Tzun-huang Hsiao, Deputy Secretary General of Taichung City Government, Kun-ming Kuo, Deputy Director of Cultural Affairs Bureau, Chun-fu Shih, Acting Chief of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Chao-jong Chen, Deputy Chief of Palace Museum, Jin-huei Lee, Chief of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, Gokita Akira, Deputy Chief of CHIMEI Museum, Ling-ling Kuo, Chief director Chong-ray Hsiao and many directors were attending the event with Mayor’s wife of Taichung, Wan-ru Liao in the name of Deputy Chief of CHIMEI Museum.

This big cross museums and countries exhibition is in the theme of「flowers」with special collections from four major art museums in different styles. 168 artworks across 11 centuries covering Taiwan, Hua-Xia, Japan, Western culture include 40 items from Palace Museum, 25 from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, 30 from CHIMEI Museum, 53 from National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and 20 pieces lent by the contemporary artists of Taiwan to bring a fantastic visual feast to the audience.

Deputy Minister Hsiao, Ministry of Culture, said, the City Government has leveraged the event of Taichung World Flora Expo to invite the visitors to see both the real flowers and the flower images developed under the civilizations and arts of human beings. The diverse contents and exhibitions from different places will complement to and reflect the Flora Expo. Everyone is welcome to visit the great events then.

Deputy Secretary General Kuo of the City Government mentioned, all the beautiful things are gradually induced by the Flora Expo; also, the City Government has organized some other events, including Taichung Art Festival, Literary activities and Flora Expo books etc., to infuse the event with the temperature of culture. We’d like to appreciate the involvement from all territories to make Flora Expo find out the warmth and beauty of life. Please join in us to see the exhibition of「Flowers of Immense Charm」to「listen to the sound of blooming」and visit Flora Expo.

Acting Chief Chen, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, said, the joint exhibition is an unbelievable international art festival, he is looking forward to seeing the「opening」of the artworks and welcome the people either from Taiwan or other countries to share the valuable festival.

Deputy Chief Lee, Palace Museum, mentioned, 40 selected items from Palace Museum for the exhibition this time are all first to Taichung and 90% of them are sent out from the museum for the first time. These items are expected to show their gorgeous faces of different cultures to the audience and get closer to them as well through this plan.

Chief Gokita of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum said, Tokyo Fuji Art Museum was established in 1983 with active communications between them and Taiwan art museums. The exhibited 25 artworks were the paintings completed during Edo Period to Showa Period, it’s believed to bring everyone the unique and delicate beauty of Japanese culture.

Deputy Chief Kuo of CHIMEI Museum said, all the provided 30 artworks are equipped with the feature of「flowers」; it’s a great honor to join in the joint exhibition. Just like the great collaboration with Palace Museum and National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts for women’s image communication festival in 2005, the event this time will definitely be another great and anticipatable festival.

Chief director Hsiao said thanks to these four major art museums for fully supporting the event, the director has dedicated to organize「one sand as one world, one flower as one heaven」to make the joint exhibition to become the pride of Taiwan. We hope everyone will see the sound influence of culture behind the Flora Expo. Part of the items will be taken in turn to be exhibited by 2 stages for the artwork protection and security purposes.

The joint exhibition, the items from Palace Museum are all the special selected pieces of Hua-Xia cultural products; the items for opening exposure are the Celadon lotus warm bowl from North Sung dynasty, carved plum tree incense holder of rhinoceros horn, carved flower basket of rhinoceros horn, Emperor’s writing of Qing Kao Tzung for〈Taoyao〉 in《Emperor’s writing for Classic of Poetry》etc., to show the tool and painty features of Palace Museum collections.

The collections from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum covering the Japanese fine art, western fine art and photography are the Japanese oriental cultural artworks, including the national treasure level of screens of Kano school completed during 17th to 19th centuries, very remarkable Ukiyo-e and prints in Edo Period; the selected 5 joint pieces, Shinjihara Sakura View, by the famous Ukiyo-e painter, Utagawa Toyokuni, were the representative artworks for opening exposures.

CHIMEI Museum is famous for plenty of the western fine art and cultural artwork collections. The selected artworks for the exhibition are all「flower」related, including the paintings, furnitures, instruments and decorating items etc., reflecting the combined imagination of western classics and the fairy tales, the symbols with the universe and life concepts etc.; the opening artwork is one of the key collections of the Museum, the painting（Dionysia）, by Pierre Auguste COT, the French academic painter in 19th century.

National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts is positioned for collecting the artworks with the ideas of the modern arts to contemporary Taiwanese fine art research. The artworks to be exhibited include the national treasure level of〈Lily pool〉by Yu-shan Lin and 6 subjects as「Localize the splendid four seasons」, 「Recall the memories sealed」, 「Transform the life learned」, 「Seek for the dreaming garden」, 「Desire the diverse love connected」, 「True or false and real or fake」 to present the various appearances of 「flower」created during the act of new fine arts in Taiwan. The opening items covered the flower-themed artworks completed by Ji-chu Lin, Hsueh-hu Kuo, De-jinn Shiy, Shi-chiao Lee, Hou Wu, Ji-chun Liao, Ming-huei Yen, Tien-chang Wu, Edan Bavavana etc., in addition to the contemporary devices and digital images created by Lan-ya Huang, Chun-chun Lai and Jun-tin Lin etc..

「Flowers of Immense Charm - A Masterpiece Exhibition by Four Major Museums」kicking off on 10/6 at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts; the exhibitions will be set in Room 101, 102, time well and buffalo hall until 10th of next February. The opening hours of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts are 9AM to 5PM every Tuesday to Friday and 9AM to 6PM every Saturday and Sunday. Closed on Monday. For more information, please visit the official website of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.