Tugou Rural Art Museum Opens: The village is the museum, and the museum is the village
Preface:
The Tugou Rural Art Museum is a very special museum. It basically treats the "entire village" as an art museum; the corners of the village, the houses, and the fields are the exhibition spaces. By the end of this year there will be an "opening" event, and starting in August there will be a "House of the Village Contemporary Art Exhibition" (an indoor invitational exhibition), followed by other field art actions. This special project is funded entirely by private fundraising, and the money raised is not for building a physical art museum structure, but for treating the village as an art museum and enriching it with diverse artworks. Below is a detailed explanation. Please support Taiwan, China's first rural art museum without boundaries!
The village is an art museum, and the art museum is the village
On April 7, 2001, the Tugou Rural Culture Development Association was officially registered and established. If we regard the more than ten years of community-wide development as the preparatory stage of the rural art museum, then conveying the spirit of development through art on the surface is not the difficult issue of recent years. What is more difficult is continually conflicting with and challenging society's existing traditions and mainstream values, and within these extremely small tremors and differences opening up opportunities for self-reflection and dialogue, so that these repeatedly recurring dialectical processes become internalized as local experience and a knowledge economy. Therefore, we moved from weakening the interpretation of art as the subject to using the name of art as a call.
If modern art and modern society use critique, revolution, and subversion as means of escaping authority, rigidity, and domination, thereby recovering a freedom and difference that has already been lost; then we can say that the postmodern culture of the late twentieth century fell into a crisis of pluralism because it was filled with plurality, difference, and opposing conflicts. The Tugou Rural Art Museum seeks difference and thinks about difference within this line of thought.
We understand that city and countryside do not stand as a binary opposition at the two ends of a spectrum. The changes and differences between urban and rural areas are not the object of artistic expression, but the source of art's existing power. Therefore, affirming the diverse cultural foundation, local customs, popular sentiments, and rhythm of life of rural villages, and manifesting the core value of "agriculture" through art within the context of the land's texture, environment, and ecology, is our shared expectation.
The Tugou Rural Art Museum officially opens in 2012!
We hope visitors will shift their frequency, and the fields, settlements, and street corners and alleys are the exhibition spaces. Beyond presenting the eternity of aesthetic beauty, the artworks guide visitors to learn to think and reposition themselves. Perhaps the life of farmers is itself art, sculpting plump and abundant fruit; those rough, wrinkled hands symbolize a life conviction of persistent ideals. We will continue the creative foundation accumulated over many years, jointly planning internally the future exhibition forms and content. Externally, our actions take three main threads - "rectification of the name," "House of the Village - Contemporary Art Exhibition," and the "Field Art Seeding Project" - to critique and reflect on the current issue of "agriculture," and to reclaim the right to interpret "agriculture."
The "Tugou Rural Art Museum," with the concept that the village is an art museum and the art museum is the village, extends throughout the village. Art is not entirely bestowed by outside culture; the art of the land should be nourished and grow strong from the fields. The opening of the art domain lets the people of this land hear the colors of the sea of rice. We sincerely hope that all sectors will join the ranks of the Tugou Rural Art Museum in various ways, and we hope to walk hand in hand with you along the winding, meandering paths, exploring together the beautiful scenery of the four seasons.
Please support Taiwan, China's first rural art museum
Small donations—
Administrative Specialist: Wang Jingxiu 06-6874505
e-mail: [email protected]
Donation account information.
Land Bank of Taiwan, Baihe Branch (005-0898)
Account name: Tainan City Tugou Rural Culture Development Association
Account number: 0890-0100-6437