The Executive Yuan yesterday approved a Ministry of Culture proposal to spend NT$1.4 billion (US$43.58 million) over four years to establish the National Tainan Art Museum, and to research and promote the history of Taiwanese opera, art, music, literature and architecture.
The project, titled “Rebuilding Taiwanese Art History 2.0,” was proposed following the successful implementation of a seven-year project in which the government appropriated a special budget from 2018 to this year to rebuild the nation’s art history through a collaboration between private and government entities, the ministry said.
The project helped bring back from the US paintings by Taiwanese artists collected by Sun Ten Pharmaceutical Co founder Hsu Hong-yen (許鴻源), it said.
Photo courtesy of the Tainan City Museum of Fine Arts
Sweet Dew (甘露水), a marble sculpture by Huang Tu-shui (黃土水), was rediscovered 50 years after it was lost and is on display at the Tokyo University of Arts, Huang’s alma mater, it said.
The ministry has collected 867 works, repaired more than 8,000 and archived more than 90,000 documents, it said, adding that it has published 456 books and audiovisual works produced by Taiwanese artists, and organized 82 exhibitions on art, craftsmanship, literature and music.
More than 3.62 million people have viewed these exhibitions, it added.
“We want to deepen collective efforts to rebuild the nation’s art history and fulfill President William Lai’s (賴清德) National Project of Hope by introducing the Rebuilding Taiwanese Art History 2.0 project,” Department of Art Development Director Chou Ya-ching (周雅菁) told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei.
Aside from continuing to collect and research materials related to Taiwanese art, music and literature history, the budget approved by the Executive Yuan yesterday would also be used to gather and study documents related to the history of Taiwanese operas and architecture, the ministry said.
The funds would also be used to prepare for the establishment of the National Tainan Art Museum, which would be dedicated to research, exhibition and education of veteran Taiwanese artists, it said.
A preparatory office for the museum would begin operations on March 25 next year, the ministry said.
The National Museum of Taiwan Literature in Tainan, the National Taiwanese Opera Center in Kaohsiung and the Taiwan Music Institute and Taiwan Architecture Culture Center in Taipei are to continue efforts to preserve Taiwanese literature, opera, music and architecture, it added.
The ministry and the National Development Council would work together to ensure that information gathered through the project could be used for generative artificial intelligence applications and be available to the international community, it said.
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