Citing a lack of financial and legal support as well as ineffective policies, a group of artists, curators, educators and gallery owners yesterday said the government has done little to support Taiwan’s artists and the country’s visual arts industry and that they are being increasingly marginalized.
Only four out of the about 200 galleries in Taiwan were admitted to this year’s Hong Kong International Art Fair and while there are sections focusing on China, Japan, South Korea and southeastern Asia at international auctions held in Hong Kong, Taiwan has been left out.
“The problem of marginalization is serious,” Taiwan Art Gallery Association chairman Richard Chang (張學孔) said at a public hearing organized by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Apollo Chen (陳學聖) and Chen Pi-han (陳碧涵), along with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), on the development of visual arts at the legislature.
Chang said tax breaks could help the competitiveness of Taiwan’s artists.
Independent curator Hu Yung-fen (胡永芬) agreed, saying that the policy of imposing income tax on the sale of artworks had driven the auctionhouses Sotheby’s and Christie’s, both of which had branches in Taiwan in the 1990s, to Hong Kong.
On the legal front, Chang and Capital Art Center chairman York Hsiao (蕭耀) said there are no criminal sanctions for the forgery of art, resulting in auction houses selling fake artworks made by art forgery networks.
“Anyone who dares to stand up and speak out will be threatened by gangsters,” Hsiao said. “It is a big blow to the industry, causing collectors to lose confidence.”
It is essential to establish art authentication and appraisal services, introduce modern dating and analysis techniques and create an official database for copyrighted artworks, Hsiao said.
Hu Yung-fen also questioned the vast difference between government budgets for visual arts, amounting to NT$200 million (US$6.7 million) annually, and other categories, such as the cultural and creative industries, which receive NT$10 billion in funding from the National Development Fund alone.
“We won’t say anything if the money is well spent, but take Huashan 1914 Creative Park for example. It is now seen as a successful culture park model that can be duplicated across the nation,” the curator said. “When artists were there, they didn’t damage a brick in the historical buildings. When businesspeople arrive, they knock holes in walls. Can someone give us a legitimate reason for having seven restaurants in the cultural park?”
Luo Li-chen (駱麗真), a council member of the Association of the Visual Arts in Taiwan (AVAT), said policymakers and government officials need to know what is really needed.
“To have international exchange does not mean to simply send people to another country. We don’t have multilingual Web sites and databases for the introduction of local artists. Neither do we have specialized museums that serve to support individual disciplines. So even if a museum of photography in the US wants to collaborate with us, we don’t have a similar institute to work with them,” Luo said.
Speaking on the issue of artists’ livelihoods, Tsao Yu-wei (曹育維), chairman of the artists trade union in Taipei, said that most artists need to work odd jobs for “eight hours a day” in order to support themselves.
“Artists can’t even win government bids for public art projects. It is usually construction companies that take the job,” Tsao said.
AVAT chairman Sean Hu (胡朝聖) said the Ministry of Culture should put more effort into its art bank, a government-funded program that buys artworks by young artists and makes its collection available for rent.
“According to our study on Canada, Australia and South Korea, most of the artworks are rented out to be on display at government institutes and private companies,” Hu said. “So we should let the work of more new talent be seen in different places rather than limit them to museums for educational use.”
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
STAY VIGILANT: People should reduce the risk of chronic liver inflammation by avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and eating pickled foods, the physician said A doctor last week urged people to look for five key warning signs of acute liver failure after popular producer-turned-entertainer Shen Yu-lin (沈玉琳) was reportedly admitted to an intensive care unit for fulminant hepatitis. Fulminant hepatitis is the rapid and massive death of liver cells, impairing the organ’s detoxification, metabolic, protein synthesis and bile production functions, which if left untreated has a mortality rate as high as 80 percent, according to the Web site of Advancing Clinical Treatment of Liver Disease, an international organization focused on liver disease prevention and treatment. People with hepatitis B or C are at higher risk of
FINE PRINT: Parents should carefully evaluate offers from cram schools that are designed to lower the amount they have to refund later, a New Taipei City official said New Taipei City Consumer Protection Office Director Wang Chih-yu (王治宇) urged parents to check contract content and institutional operations before sending children to cram schools, enrichment classes or day care centers during summer vacation. Closures and refund problems most commonly occur in cram schools, especially language cram schools, many of which have been facing difficulties due to the popularity of online learning apps and studying abroad, Wang said. Cram schools that closed due to financial issues were often unable to refund tuition fees, he said. Under Article 24 of the Rules for the Establishment and Management of Short-term Supplementary Learning Centers (短期補習班設立及管理準則), cram
RSS