The Control Yuan has censured the Ministry of Culture following a probe into claims that installations of public art have been monopolized by a few agents.
The Control Yuan’s Committee on Educational and Cultural Affairs on Jan. 11 passed an investigative report submitted by Control Yuan members Fan Sun-lu (范巽綠), Su Li-chung (蘇麗瓊) and Lin Sheng-fong (林盛豐) and forwarded the report to government agencies for review, the Control Yuan said in a press release yesterday.
The government has been
Photo: Hsieh Chun-lin, Taipei Times
promoting public art installations for 25 years, spending about NT$9.93 billion (US$316.73 million) to complete 5,126 works in 2,455 projects as of 2021, it said.
However, the installations drew extensive criticism, including that they ended up as garbage, destroyed the beauty of the environment, wasted money and were monopolized by a few agents, it said.
The Regulations on the Installation of Public Art (公共藝術設置辦法) are becoming more complicated and many of the administrative agents involved in public art installation projects lacked expertise in the field, the members said.
From 2011 to 2021, 711 out of 1,517 projects — 47.4 percent — were handled by agents,using about 68.28 percent of all funding, statistics provided by the ministry showed, it said.
In 2021 alone, 84 out of 141 projects were handled by agents, with four agents handling 58 projects, 41 percent, it said.
Some agents had unusual connections with the company that won the bid for the project, but the ministry failed to look into the situation, it added.
There are only 366 members in the ministry’s database of experts and academics, unevenly distributed across expertise, and no new additions were made for years, it said.
Some members are heads of agencies so they would be personally involved in a project while reviewing other projects at the same time, it said.
The promotion of public art had seen some success at first, including the project along Taipei’s Dunhua S Road and Dunhua N Road
and the Dome of Light at the Formosa Boulevard Station in
Kaohsiung, it said.
The ministry failed to adhere to its objective and move with the times to nurture young artists, respond to environmental challenges with innovative solutions or demonstrate sustainable values, which resulted in a lack of public artworks with Taiwanese characteristics, it said.
The Ministry of National Defense even allowed its agencies to import unfinished products from China, it said, citing examples that were found in the Amis Longshan (龍山) Camp, Yuqin (育勤) Camp and Gueiren (歸仁) Camp, it said.
The Ministry of Culture should come up with solutions to these practices as they are not conducive to the development of public art, it said.
The Culture and Arts Reward and Promotion Act (文化藝術獎助及促進條例) requires public buildings and major construction projects to allocate no less than 1 percent of the total cost of the project for public art, which is a stipulation rarely seen in advanced countries, it said.
The Ministry of Culture should seek opinions from experts and refer to foreign practices while planning to amend the act to avoid prescribing unreasonably high budgets, it said.
The Control Yuan also suggested that the ministry establish dedicated and professional teams to provide professional guidance to public art installation projects to prevent any party from obtaining improper benefits.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
Upon its completion next year, the new Tamkang Bridge (淡江大橋) in New Taipei City is to be an important landmark in Taiwan, alongside Taipei 101, Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shi-kai (陳世凱) said today. The bridge is scheduled to be completed in December next year and open to the public in the first half of 2026, connecting New Taipei City’s Tamsui (淡水) and Bali (八里) districts. It is an asymmetric single-tower suspension bridge, nearly 70 stories tall, designed by world-famous architect Zaha Hadid. The bridge aims to alleviate traffic in Tamsui and on the Guandu Bridge (關渡大橋), in addition to increasing the
EXERCISES: A 2022 article by a Chinese intelligence expert identified at least six People’s Liberation Army assault boats hidden inside the Hong Kong-flagged ship A Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship that had been docked at Taichung Port and which previously took part in Chinese military exercises departed from the port on Saturday, the Taiwan International Ports Corp’s Taichung branch said yesterday. The statement came in response to a post on the social media platform X by Taiwan-based journalist Chris Horton that said the ship, the SCSC Fortune, had been docked at the port since Tuesday and questioned whether Taiwan has any rules regarding foreign civilian vessels that have participated in People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises. Horton referenced a 2022 article by Chinese intelligence expert Rod Lee that
PROBLEMATIC: Popular hotpot restaurant chains were among the list of restaurants that failed the inspection and have been ordered to remove bad ingredients The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of hotpot ingredients in hotpot restaurants resulted in a 16.7 percent failure rate. Eight vegetables had excessive pesticide residue and two other items had aflatoxin and excessive preservatives. As the weather is getting colder, more people eat at hotpot restaurants so a random inspection of ingredients was conducted in October to ensure food safety, the department said. Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) said 60 different ingredients were tested: 15 high-risk vegetables, 15 processed food items, 10 soy-based food items, five meat items, five lamb items, five seafood items and five peanut powder
RSS