On October 28 1927, the first Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition opened in Taipei. It attracted a large crowd of 28119 visitors in only ten days (Taiwan Sōtokufu Bunkyōkyoku Shakaika, ed. Taiwan shakai kyōiku gayō (Taipei: Seibunsha, 1934), 74.). This juried salon for contemporary painting catered to interests of the Japanese colonial government and settler-artists. It projected an image of Japan as a benevolent colonizer, captured the attention of local audiences, functioned as part of the cultural assimilation policy, and provided Japanese artists in Taiwan with a highly publicized opportunity to promote their art. In addition, the salon attracted some Taiwanese Chinese artists. The young, largely self-taught painter Guo Xuehu (1908-2012) was one of them. (For a database with reproductions of all the Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition works click here. To learn more about the salon see: New Visions, compilation by Yen, square book). 

In fact, Guo Xuehu became one of the only three Taiwanese Chinese whose works were accepted to the tōyōga divison at the first Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition. By 1932, he had established his position as a successful emerging artist in Taipei's art circles. In an essay penned in response to a Taiwan-wide competition for library users' stories, he looked back at his artistic debut and singled out the library as his "unparalleled teacher." The essay received the second prize and was published in the Japanese language newspaper Taiwan nichinichi shinpō, turning him into a role model for other artists in Taiwan, who were not able to afford studying with an instructor or enroll in an art school in Japan (Compare: Yen in Refracted modernity 103, Liao 2002:216-7). For an English translation of the essay click here. 

This module explores artistic infrastructures and the circulation of artistic knowledge in the Japanese empire by focusing on Guo Xuehu's essay. By the early 1930s, artists in Japan were becoming aware of Taiwan's art scene and many painters traveled to the island in pursuit of subject matter. Similarly, Japanese art world began to loom large in the imagination of young aspiring painters in Taiwan, which included Japanese settlers and Taiwanese Chinese. Some of these aspiring artists would leave Taiwan for Japan in pursuit of an artistic education and career.

Today, Guo Xuehu is considered to be a master of twentieth century painting in Taiwan. However, he is largely absent from the narratives of Japanese modern art. The national approach to Japanese modern art history obscures the involvement of Japanese artists in the imperial expansion as well as the presence of Korean and Taiwanese artists within the purview of the empire. By highlighting the intimacy between the Taiwanese and Japanese art worlds, this project helps us envision the Japanese art world in the 1930s on new terms. In this way, it is part of a larger body of scholarship that is committed to reshaping our understanding of space and boundaries of Japan as a multi-ethnic nation and a multi-national state in the interwar period (See for example: Oguma, Self-Images, Boundaries; Tessa Morris-Suzuki Reinventing Japan 1998; Kate McDonald, Placing Empire). 

I argue that in the interwar period Japan's was an imperial art world (teikoku bijutsukai), intimately intertwined with the art worlds of Korea and Taiwan. The spaces of art exhibitions, ateliers, art schools, personal networks, and newspaper pages constituted this imperial art world. Circulation of information, goods, and people within the Japanese empire stimulated its emergence. It expanded as a spatial entity and a powerful idea. Artists, be it Japanese painters, settler-artists, or colonial subjects, came to understand and negotiate their own place within it. As producers of representations, they also shaped its image. An approach to Japanese modern art history that omits the empire is simply untenable. 

This module consists of three interlocking pathways that coalesce around Guo Xuehu's prize-winning essay. Each pathway explores the intimacy between Japan's and Taiwan's art worlds through a different scale and infrastructure: 1) practice and discourse of art education (information/knowledge), 2) institution of the library and books (built environment, vehicles), and 3) a career of an individual artist (figure). Each pathway introduces relevant primary sources and questions as a material for discussion and research projects in a university classroom.

This page is tagged by: Flows, Built Environment, Vehicle, Information / Knowledge, Figure