Baroque and beyond

The National Palace Museum's new exhibition displays works collected by the Hapsburg royal family

By Ian Bartholomew
Staff Reporter, Taipei Times
Thursday, Oct 25, 2007, Page 15

Four years in the making, Baroque and Beyond: Great Hapsburg Collectors finally makes its debut at the National Palace Museum. Photos: courtesy of NPM

Taipei's National Palace Museum (NPM, 國立故宮博物院) has long since established itself as a repository for Chinese art; with its newest exhibit, Splendor of the Baroque and Beyond: Great Hapsburg Collectors, it proves it is much more than that.

According to Wilfried Seipel, director of Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM), who was in Taipei for the opening of the exhibition, the aim of the show is not just a tour of grand masters from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The Hapsburg emperors amassed huge collections, and the exhibition is an insight into the emperors as collectors of art and their individual tastes. In an age when the very understanding of what it was to be human underwent radical change, these works, the cutting edge of artistic expression at the time, reveal much.

This exhibition, which runs until Feb. 24, displays 67 works from KHM, and is part of a cultural exchange project in which the NPM will exhibit part of its collection in Vienna next year.

The exhibition is being held in the NPM's second exhibition area, now routinely used for special events. With relatively few items, each work is given ample space, encouraging museumgoers to enjoy the complexity and intricacy of each work.

Four years in the making, Baroque and Beyond: Great Hapsburg Collectors finally makes its debut at the National Palace Museum. Photos: courtesy of NPM

Four years in the making, the exhibition is a follow-up to a proposal made 15 years ago, but which for "various political reasons," said Seipel, did not get off the ground. For the first time, the originals of some of the best-known works of the Baroque era are on display at the NPM.

Of particular interest to art history students and hobbyists, is the use of color and movement by artists like Titian (circa 1488-1576), the almost photographic realism achieved by Balthasar Denner (1685-1747), the sheer exuberance of Bartholomaus Spranger (1546-1611) and the endless bold and bizarre experiments in perspective by Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-1606), Hendrick van Steenwijck the Younger (1580-1649) and others.

In this age, during which the dominance of religion was giving way to humanism, subject matter was diverse, ranging from works conventionally lauding the power and magnificence of the royal house, to others showing the lives of common people and portraiture.

The curators have provided adequate explanations in English and Chinese for each section of the exhibition, but detailed notes on individual paintings are in Chinese only. To get the most out of the show, audio tours have been made available in Chinese. An English audio tour is expected to be available in two to three weeks. Audio tours cost NT$100 and require a deposit. There is also an excellent Web site with an English introduction and photos of the works at www.mediasphere.com.tw/vieena/zh-en/vienna_overview.html.

Caught in a net of 7-Elevens

Bicycles become gym equipment.
Originally uploaded by ianish2005

A project by staff and students of the Shih Chien University School of Design has created some unexpected adornments to Taipei's busy streets

Walking in the area around the Mingde (明德) MRT station in Beitou or in Gongguan (公館) around the National Taiwan University (國立台灣大學) campus, you might happen upon some peculiar ornamentation that he appeared in some disused or public spaces in the vicinity of 7-Eleven convenience stores. Along Dingzhou Road (丁州路), there is a posterized image of baseball hero Wang Jian-ming (王建明) made from paper cups inserted in a wire fence, and further down, a block of motorcycle parking spaces have been blocked off with milk crates and peculiar contraptions made from disused bicycles adorn the sidewalk.
"You're not really meant to see than until you come upon them (the bicycles)," said Tseng Wei (曾瑋), an architect from Taichung who also teachers at the College of Design at the Shih Chien University (實踐大學). "It is supposed to inspire a new way of looking at how urban space can be used." There is a handbook hanging from a nearby signpost describing how the contraptions, which looks like highly dangerous gym equipment, can be used.
This installation is one of eight that is part of a project called 7-Eleven City: Poetry, Architecture, New Communities that is partially funded by the President Group (統一) that owns the 7-Eleven chain. The project brought in four foreign and four local architects, who were teamed with eight poets, to create eight installations. Part of the challenge was that although the individual 7-Eleven stores which serve as markers for the installations were all participants, architects had to liaise with the community as well. Information about the location of the eight projects can be found in participating 7-Eleven stores, and although the installations are intended to remain in place until next weekend, some are likely to fall victim to the elements or irate local residents. Circle of Hope, just outside Mingde MRT station, created from massive blocks of ice by Taipei architect Lien Hao-yen (連浩延), unsurprisingly did not survive the first day.
Marco Casagrande. a Helsinki-based architect who is currently a visiting professor at Tamkang University, found that his Finnish sauna built in the forecourt of 7-Eleven just of Xinsheng South Road, Section 3, was not uniformly appreciated by local residents, who complained about the smoke from the wood fire. "The project raised issues of how we perceive public space," said Ruan Ching-yue (阮慶岳), one of the organizers of the event. An army of scarecrows, that stand half hidden amount the confusion of Wenzhou Street (溫州街), required agreement from local shop owners. "People here are always willing to go for it," Casagrande said. "I think there would be much more resistance in the US or Europe to a project like this."
For Beijing-based architect Wang Yun (王昀), it is the multiplicity of networks in which we now live that gave interest to the project. "7-Elevens are everywhere, and form a network which we negotiate when moving through the community. Mobile phones are another. Internet another. There are layers of networks which we are negotiating constantly. A project like this helps architecture students and the public become more aware of the networks in which they are enmeshed."

Published Taipei Times
Sunday Sept. 30