Introduction｜Taichung City Seaport Art Center

The Origin

According to” The guidance and assistance in City and city theme exhibition halls to establish and enrich the collections of cultural and historical relics plan” of Council for Cultural Affairs, Taichung City Seaport Art Center tried to integrate the local art resources effectively, developed the local special features and made use the existing available spaces to expand the range of theme exhibition halls. In addition, in order to promote the education and the appreciation on the arts of Taichung City, we had set the target of handing on the torch of the art to the next generation, Taichung City Artist Archives project was thus began to launch since 1999, and Professor Wang Lian Deng was entrusted for the planning of the facility. The development of Taiwan's modern art commenced in the Japanese colonization period, before the time, there were only fragments of Chinese folk art existed; during the time, the artists who were sent to study abroad had returned to country to become the creators of native arts and established the new local arts and cultures. Although those first Taiwanese modern art generations are mostly aged or withered, they are greatly honored and highly respected in Taiwan's history of art? When we count the artists that have rewritten Taiwan's modern art history, we can discover that eight out of ten came from Tiachung City. Therefore, the study of this generation of pioneer artists and the categorizing work on researching the artists havebecome an important cultural development for Taichung City, and it is also an indispensable record for the overall development of Taiwan's Art culture.

Objective

Taichung City Artist Archives makes use of the existing available parts of space of the Taichung City Seaport Art Center; it has become the introduction and exhibition center for the collections of information and providing the historical figures of the Taichung City Artists. It was opened on November 4th in 2001, is mainly for collecting, recording, organizing, exhibiting and educating our next generation regarding Taichung artists’ biography background, teacher-pupil relationships, creation ideas, and artistic achievements. It lets the people understand further more about the sequence of the arts development and the track of cultural deduction, and become the information center of artists’ historical records in Taichung City.

Location

This exhibition center is located on the second floor at the north side of the Taichung City Seaport Art Center. With an area about 340 square meters, it is mainly divided into Monthly Arts Appreciation Area, Records Exhibition Area, Books and Album of Paintings Reading Area, Multimedia Area, Electronic Information Area, and the Corridor of Taichung City Art History.

Introduction to Each Area

• Monthly Arts Appreciation Area
  Taichung City Artist Archives makes use of the existing available parts of space of the Taichung City Seaport Art Center; it has become the introduction and exhibition center for the collections of information and providing the historical figures of the Taichung City Artists. It was opened on November 4th in 2001, is mainly for collecting, recording, organizing, exhibiting and educating our next generation regarding Taichung artists’ biography background, teacher-pupil relationships, creation ideas, and artistic achievements. It lets the people understand further more about the sequence of the arts development and the track of cultural deduction, and become the information center of artists’ historical records in Taichung City.
• Records Exhibition Area
  It is the area for the collected information of Taichung City art workers that exhibit 32 artists’ works of their creation careers by computer outputs and their representative creations. Each exhibition will last for half a year. Books and Album of Paintings Reading Area: This area provides many art works and research albums related to the artists in Taichung City, and it helps people to understand artists' positions in the history of art while adding the knowledge of art to people for appreciations.
• Multimedia area
  Besides static reading, the multimedia area uses live and active method to apply audio/video media to present the artists' works of creations, skills, and artistic ideas. It also provides many ways for the people to be familiar with the artists of Taichung City.
• Electronic Information Area
  It is the area to use the Taichung City art workers' digitized artistic information to provide for the people to research . At the same time, it can provide art news to anyone at anywhere through the Internet.
• Corridor of Taichung City Art History
  Taichung City is located in the important position of “located in the center, and controls the path to the north and south.” Therefore, the development history of Taichung City can be regarded as the epitome of developmental history of Taiwan; in addition, the arts developmental history of Taichung City is no exception, the first stage of artistic development can be traced back to the aboriginals' primitive arts, the next is the Han people's folk arts, after that is Chinese traditional art; Japanese art passed into Taiwan during the Japanese colonization period, and finally western art passed directly or indirectly into Taiwan. This area mainly displays and exhibits” the City artists that have been in official exhibitions during the Japanese colonization period”, including “Taiwan's fine art exhibition” and ” Taiwan governor-general's fine art exhibition” during 1927-1943, also the introductions of different artists in Taichung City.

Admiring the Past Glory, Presenting the Future Desire

The exhibition of The Regeneration Past Glory Series is to present the cooperation achievement with the Council of Cultural Affairs to the operation of Artistic Resources Investigation and Development Project which was entrusted to the director professor Zhuang ming-zhong of Art Department of National Taichung University for conducting the investigation of Taichung City art works and artists’ resources, it includs the 150 artist predecessors information and their works that had great influences in Taiwan’s art history, and the artists who are currently active in the art world. The exhibition is divided into five different stages in each half a year, which presents Taichung City Artists information graphically for people to admire, study and research, and lead the people to a deep understanding of Taichung City art territory.