"White cube" refers to the neutral, well-lit area in a museum or gallery where works are displayed. This concept stems from the design of public museums in Europe during the 19th century.
Like art, the spatial design of museums has evolved over time. Bright lights and white walls have been modified and new rooms, such as black boxes for viewing video and photograph installations, have emerged. Likewise, curators have developed alternative ways to exhibit non-Western modern art.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TAIPEI FINE ARTS MUSEUM
The Yellow Box: Contemporary Calligraphy and Painting in Taiwan demonstrates 10 new and creative ways of exhibiting contemporary Chinese painting. Hong Kong-based curator, Chang Tsong-zung (
The most exceptional part of this exhibition is not the art but the way it is displayed. Divided into five rooms, the works are presented using 10 different formats based on Chang's original yellow-box sketches. At the exhibition preview, Chang said he chose the artists in the show because "together [they] provide an indication of the wide range and liveliness of Taiwan's contemporary Chinese calligraphy and painting."
Yuan Jai's (
In a separate room, Hsu Yu-jen's (許雨仁) landscape paintings are hung at an angle rather than against the wall, which creates more depth.
The large window at the back of the room has been covered by a partition wall with three smaller windows in the shapes of a circle, a square and a Chinese fan. A large bed with tatami mats has also been built and positioned against the window where visitors can sit and peruse the scrolls and folding books displaying the works of Hsu Kuo-huang (
Near the entrance to the exhibit are 12 scrolls by Yu-peng (
The room is a working studio where Yu-peng invites visitors to paint, write or chat with him while he works.
According to an employee at the museum, who cited a report published in a popular European art journal, a person spends an average of 30 seconds looking at one painting in a museum. Chang's exhibition, however, offers innovative ways to entice visitors to step inside the box and extend their viewing experience.
Exhibition notes:
What: The Yellow Box: Contemporary Calligraphy and Painting in Taiwan (
Where: Gallery 3A at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (
Telephone: (02) 2595 7656
When: 9:30am to 5:30pm, Tuesday to Sunday (closed Mondays). Until Feb. 27, 2005.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist