<read> S. McIntyre "Soft power and the role of art in the development of Taiwan-mainland China relations"
There are few books on Asian contemporary art written in English, but they are all wonderful. I'll teach you stealthily.
This page would be changed and corrected in the future.
I introduced Dr. Sophie's book before. Today I am going to write about this paper. This paper "Soft power and the role of art in the development of Taiwan-mainland China relations" contained in the book “China in Australasia: Cultural diplomacy and Chinese arts since the cold war” (Routledge, 2019).
After the Taiwanese election, January 13th, 2024, relations between Taiwan and China will move on to the next phase while maintaining tension. As foreigners, we have no help but to watch it. At the same time, we need to objectively understand their art world. For that, this paper is useful.
She points out that Taiwan has a link between art and politics, and when problems arise in its relationship with China, it also affects art. Taiwan was democratized in the 2000s by Lee Teng-hui. The paper discusses art world and cultural policies from 2008 to 2016 when the Kuomintang (KMT) wanted to form a cooperative system with Mainland China. (In the 2024 election, the Minjindang DPP became president for the second consecutive term).
During the Lee period, there were artworks and exhibitions that emphasized the identity of Taiwan, including Taiwanese origins and Japanese rule. During the DPP era, from 2000 to 2008, movements and education were carried out to replace "Taiwan" instead of "China". After it, the government changed, Ma Ying-jeou* of the Kuomintang became president from May 2008 to 2016.
During the KMT period, Taiwan used to communicate with contemporary art as well as Confucianism, Chinese letters and language, ink painting and calligraphy shared by China and Taiwan.
So, she uses three Chinese artists, Cai Guo-Qiang, Ai Weiwei and Xu Bing as examples and explains how their exhibition was held at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
Her writing is from the standpoint of cultural policy and curator. It is very interesting the differences in timing and purpose of each exhibition, which she wrote carefully. These three artists and their exhibitions had a wide range. For example, Cai has the same roots as Taiwanese, but also Ai is anti-Mainland China artist. I read it and thought, their exhibition may have been designed with political intent... oops. I won't write in detail here, however, for viewers, it might be not "de-Sinicisation" of Taiwan, but rather "what is Taiwan?"
Artists who used to be viewers were influenced by them well. Therefore(?!), many exhibitions in Taiwan after the 2020s show original Taiwanese (actually it is world-wide topic) problems, historical and ethnic issues. With that in mind, Dr. Sophie or I will continue to write this paper. Please look forward to it! :D
(Annotation of Chisai)
* Ma's daughter is now working at a world-famous art museum, so Ma has a deep knowledge of art.