The Diversity and Abundance of Taiwan’s Contemporary Ceramics 

The relationship between the New Taipei City Yingge Museum of Ceramics and the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu has a long history. Both Yingge and Gifu are important ceramics towns, and both share the mission of promoting the local ceramics industry and the development of contemporary ceramics art. Following the opening of the Yingge Ceramics Museum in 2000, the two museums signed a Memorandum on Cultural Exchanges in 2005 and have maintained inter-museum exchanges over the years. The exhibition “The Power of Contemporary Taiwanese Ceramics” is based on this foundation, and was launched in 2019 as part of our new research and exchange program.

 

The development of Taiwan’s contemporary ceramics can be viewed against the backdrop of the European and American modern ceramics movements that emerged after the Second World War, and we can observe the uniqueness of Taiwan’s ceramics within the international ceramics environment. Taiwan’s maritime culture, which is embracing Chinese, Japanese, and Western influences, has gradually evolved into its own unique style through the process of submersion over time, forming a new style that blends multiple cultures and demonstrates the resilient and varied creative expression of Taiwanese ceramics; ranging from the metamorphosis and innovation based on local traditions to those artists who have been inspired by Western modern ceramics.

 

This exhibition features 86 sets of artworks, mainly from the collection of the Yingge Ceramic Museum. Beginning from the old days of Yingge, the capital of ceramics, the exhibition unveils the historical context of contemporary Taiwanese ceramics, and brings together the works of Taiwan’s early generation of artists along with those of the younger generation. Finally, the exhibition focuses on various aspects of contemporary Taiwanese ceramics, including the impact of the “Exhibition of Works by Contemporary Taiwanese and Japanese Ceramists” in 1981, which has influenced a generation of Taiwanese artists and promoted the development of Taiwanese ceramics, making this exhibition particularly meaningful.

 

Finally, I would like to thank the directors of the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu, Shuji Takahashi (the former director) and Yasuyuki Ishizaki for their invitation and the Japanese curator Izumi Hayashi for their careful preparations, which made it possible for this exhibition to be shown in Japan in the midst of a serious global epidemic. It is my hope that these works of Taiwanese ceramics, which have travelled across the ocean, will transcend the power of language to create a cross-border exchange of art, allowing the friendship between Taiwan and Japan to become more beautiful and more free thanks to the arts.