1. Facing the Incompleteness of a Museum Collection and Urban History

Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) is currently celebrating is 30th anniversary and in conjunction with work being undertaken for the “Taipei Fine Arts Museum Collection Catalogue 1983-2013” I was asked by the Acquisition Department to write an article entitled “Museum Collections and Their Relationship to Urban History and Myth.” Although this is an issue in which I have long been interested and I firmly believe the first modern art museum in a capital city should be inextricably connected to the development of the city in which it resides, I encountered an unexpected difficulty when I came to write about Taipei and the TFAM collection. Whether in terms of the content of the collection or its chronological distribution, there was one serious omission. I found that the 228 incident (1947) and the imposition of Martial Law and white terror resulted in the loss of artistic work related to earlier historical and urban developments during the period of Japanese colonial rule and the accompanying Kominka (Japanification) movement. If an established museum collection is unable to resolve such a shortcoming, the issue becomes whether it can use alternative methods to at least partially overcome this problem.

The question is to what extent the development of Taipei Fine Arts Museum should be linked to the growth of the city and up to what point should urban development be a focus? Such a determination is also closely tied up with how to position TFAM. For example, if we want to establish a relationship between the museum and the modernization of Taipei, then the history of the city should clearly be a reference point for collection work. On the other hand, if we position Taipei as an international metropolis then the age of discovery becomes important. At present, whether we select the former or the latter, the museum’s current collection remains incomplete. This is important because there is a clear cause and effect relationship between any collection and later exhibitions. For example, if a museum wants to organize a series of exhibitions on urban development, but its own collection is insufficient for that purpose such an objective might be better achieved by a loan exhibition. Moreover, borrowed pieces could also transcend the confines of narrowly defined fine art or visual art.

Furthermore, if Taipei Fine Arts Museum is to face the modernization of Taipei City or modern-related issues, does that mean it should only collect art related historical artifacts after the modernization of the city reaches a certain point? Or is it more important to collect all works developed in this period and subject to the dialectical process? In addition, do we need to consider which things are of value during this process and therefore push everything else to the periphery or eliminate it, all in the name of rational development or national security? Is this an activity in which a modern art museum like TFAM should be engaged?

If we examine exhibitions held at Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the history of the city has only been addressed tangentially and intermittently. Indeed, it featured relatively prominently only in “The Quest for Identity” at the 1996 Taipei Biennial, “Site of Desire” at the 1998 Taipei Biennial and “Modern Monsters: Death and Life of Fiction” at the 2012 Taipei Biennial. The last of these was most notable because it focused on revealing “modern monsters” which also involved unearthing a great deal of unknown historical images and documents, some of which were formerly classified as state secrets. In addition, it is also possible that over the years TFAM has allowed exhibitions, collection and research work to unconsciously filter out concepts, ideas and expressions considered insufficiently “modern.” At the same time, the term “fine art” might also have resulted in the disqualification of subjects that could in practice have been fallen under the broader cultural rubric of “visual art.” These taboos were thoroughly subverted by the recent Venice Biennial’s “Encyclopedic Palace” and in the wake of this the question becomes whether a modern fine art museum can establish a more intimate relationship with the history of the city in which it is located?

2. Transforming Museum-Cities into Encyclopedic Palaces

Massimiliano Gioni curated the “Encyclopedic Palace” and his thinking was inspired by the architectural project “Encyclopedic Palace of the World” by Italian artist Marino Auriti in 1950. Originally this was a skyscraper imagined as a museum and a repository for all human culture and worldly knowledge. Although Gioni did not try to realize this crazy dream, what he did do was to invite into this central area works originally consigned to the periphery by the Venice Biennial or pushed to the margins by contemporary rational thought.

“Encyclopedic Palace” is a research-based exhibition that is heavily anthropological in nature. It also collects so much knowledge designated as beyond mainstream art that the research involved could not possibly have been undertaken by the curator alone, but was rather done by many different artists. As part of this extraordinary anthropological exhibition, the term artist is no longer limited to a group of people in the field of contemporary art or accepted by that field, but rather embraces an older definition that includes professions that require a certain degree of fixation - handicraft art, medicine, fringe science, astrology and alchemy. Under normal conditions these fields would have nothing to do with a fine art museum and it is this fact that provides the distinctive character and background to “Encyclopedic Palace.”

Although this exhibition cannot possibly be expected to establish a self-enclosed system, it does enable the mutual juxtaposition of different forms of expression not subjected to habitual local restraints. As a result, it serves as a diverse sampling mosaic of an infinitely complex world and is reminiscent of the celebration and cacophony of sound created during the temporary lifting of restraints for the Carnival of Venice. Even if this title wasn’t used, the Venice Biennial is always something of an “encyclopedic palace.” Regardless of which subjects the theme-based pavilions choose to focus on, or how the national pavilions and para-pavilions respond, everyone does their own thing. Moreover, it is through the introduction of transitory forms of artistic expression in the historical space used for the biennial, that a city of historical buildings and museums is temporarily transformed into an “encyclopedic palace.”

A review of “Modern Monsters: Death and Life of Fiction” reveals subject matter that is similar to that of “Encyclopedic Palace.” Unfortunately, anywhere that exists in a state of existential crisis such as Taiwan frequently resorts to national security as a rationale for doing certain things that are well intended but violate common sense. At the same time, “national security” issues result in different voices and opinions being quietly excluded from the collective social consciousness. The “Modern Monsters” exhibition seeks to return to various points in history distorted by the modernization process and compares them to similar examples from other countries. This is the best possible way to breathe new life into an imagination dulled by the highly centralized thinking of the time.

If we wanted to use urban development in Taipei City as a vehicle to showcase the relationship between Taiwan, neighboring areas and the world or use museums in Taipei to construct a diagram of world relations with Taiwan and neighboring areas, then what should be the role of Taipei Fine Arts Museum? One thing we must do is expand the use of “micro museums” from the last biennial exhibition, so that they can play a role in other art and cultural spaces in Taipei, infusing them with the relationships Taiwan has with the wider world. We could also take on knowledge pushed to the periphery and although such an integrative exhibition would not have to be held annually or even bi-annually, it would still need to be held at acceptable intervals. This would facilitate the diverse development of art, the accumulation of urban identity and culture, the education of individuals in the field of culture and promote city tourism.

The amount of related art work, artists, art institutions and archive information continues to increase and once the issue of an accepted core focus is resolved it can gradually be brought together. All that is needed is to redefine the term exhibition to make it more inclusive. Perhaps the first issue that needs to be addressed in this context is the relationship between works of art and documentary information, because at some point in the not too distant future the volume of such data could increase to a point where it can no longer be collected. Increasingly, a good exhibition is one that cleverly combines images and archival information and seamlessly links these to our own life space and consumer world.