Torrential wind and rain weren’t enough to keep museumgoers at home last weekend, with families and groups of students lining up outside the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) in the pouring rain to catch a glimpse of Pixar: 20 Years of Animation.
As Typhoon Morakot ravaged southern Taiwan, approximately 8,500 people wandered through TFAM on the first day of Pixar’s opening weekend — a number that dipped to 8,000 on Sunday. Thirty-two-hundred people paid to see the Pixar exhibit on Saturday with 5,200 on Sunday viewing the 650 paintings, drawings, sketches and sculptures on display. The rest were taking advantage of fee admission for other exhibits at the museum.
“Excluding the Pixar exhibit, we are waiving the museum entrance fee for the foreseeable future,” said TFAM’s Yang Shun-wen (楊舜雯). She added that the museum expects the large crowds to continue until the school year begins in September. The exhibit ends on Nov. 1.
For those wanting to avoid the multitudes of people viewing Pixar, there is still plenty to see in other parts of the museum. On the second floor, Jewels of 25 Years Museum Collection provides a succinct overview of Taiwan’s art history through 34 works of painting, sculpture and video installation. It begins with the Japanese-influenced realist paintings that were the hallmarks of colonial art and moves on to the explosion in artistic styles and media that characterizes Taiwan’s post-Martial Law era.
Two retrospective shows on the third floor offer insight into the many styles of Taiwan’s modernist movement — particularly cubism and expressionism — through the oil paintings and drawings of Lai Chuan-chien (賴傳鑑) and Chen Yin-huei (陳銀輝). In the basement, contemporary art takes center stage with an exhibit by Tang Ju-hung (黨若洪), who explores the theme of “self” through vivid self-portraits.
WHAT: Pixar: 20 Years of Animation
WHEN: Until Nov. 1. Open daily from 9:30am to 5:30pm, closes at 8:30pm on Saturdays
WHERE: Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), 181, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市中山北路三段181號). Tel: (02) 2595-7656
ADMISSION: NT$200
ON THE NET:online.tfam.museum/pixar
Tang’s dark and psychologically rich images that deconstruct his own personality may just be the kind of art that the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration needs to check out as it reflects upon its delayed response to the tragedy in the south.
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