Serving as a term of geographic location, “the South” projects an image of unique natural environment, nostalgia, exotic imagination, and marginalized or heterogenous cultures. Its meanings continue to evolve and change in Taiwan’s multiple and complicated historical contexts before, during, and after Japan’s colonial rule. Does the South project an image of a tropical island or a fertile plain? Furthermore, how can the unique spiritual landscape of “the South” be depicted? Amidst the optimistic Utopianism that comes from the alliance, transcendence, and deterritorialization caused by narratives of “Global South”, the revisiting of the concept of “the South” is an escape from the fixed framework of geopolitics on the one hand and also a process of self-rediscovery by exploring the diverse facets of “the South” on the other. Can “the South” really become a kind of thinking/attitude, or action method, or a kind of “State of Mind” as described by the 14th Kassel Documenta?
As the first exhibition in the South+ Special Collection Gallery, the South as a Place of Gathering exhibition is an exploration of “the South” mainly intended to discuss the conceptual formation and possibilities of “the South” as a convergence of heterogeneous characteristics through its display of works created in the 1930s to the 1960s selected from KMFA’s collection together with relevant documents and historical records, attempting to promote a kind of historical consciousness and research framework characterized with more openness and dialogues. Drawing references from the fraternity-like context of the painting associations popular in southern Taiwan back in the 1950s, this exhibition provides a theatrical and saloon-like ambience, in which the paintings from life by Chang Chi-hua, Liu Chi-hsiang, Chuang Shih-ho, and other famous artists in southern Taiwan from KMFA’s collection are presented according to the chorological order and connections among the artists in order to review the introduction, localization, and reinterpretation of modern art and avant-garde art introduced from Europe and Japan to southern Taiwan. Through this exhibition, we can have a comprehensive review of how modern art arrived at and started to develop in the South, how individual artists and art groups back then interacted with one another, and how a territory of aesthetics closely connected with modern life was formed in southern Taiwan.
By launching this permanent special collection exhibition on the 25th anniversary of KMFA, we hope to not only promote gradual recognition among Kaohsiung citizens of KMFA through the works specially selected from our collection, demonstrate the unique development of artistic expressions and styles in southern Taiwan, but also build visual memories of this immigrant city through arts.
Supporters: Ministry of Culture, Bureau of Cultural Affairs, Kaohsiung City Government
Organizer: Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts
Appointed Deformaldehyde Coating Sponsor: HOPAX
Special Thanks to: Industrial Development Bureau, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Economic Development Bureau, Kaohsiung City Government
Coordinator: Yulin Lee, Ph.D.
Consultants: Po-shin Chiang Ph. D., Huang Tung-fu, Nita Lo, Tseng Mei-chen
Executive Supervisor: Tseng Fang-ling
Curatorial team: Fang Yen Hsiang, Wu Hui-fang, Hung Ching-chan