The very first exhibition upon the opening of Chiayi Art Museum, Re-visiting Landscape, employs “landscape”, a significant painting form over the century, as the angle for inquiry. With the exploration of “landscape” at the core, the Exhibition contemplates upon the presentation, transformation, and interpretation thereof in different historical contexts, creative forms, and materials as well as how to reflect on the relationship among people, the environment, and cities via the concept of landscape as it evolves into the practices of the contemporary art. With this exhibition, visitors are invited to appreciate the perspectives of artists and their formation collectively while pondering over further individual’s temporal connotation with the respective environment, viewing relationship, and geopolitics.
“Re-visiting” in the title “Re-visiting Landscape” suggests return and reflection while reconsiders how artists represent the interpretation and critical relationship between themselves and Nature via art creation and actions. The topics of this exhibition are “Embodied Nature”, “Inner Landscape”, “Mediated Landscape Viewing”, and “Radical Landscape.” Traversing among different axes of time, it mulls over the artistic, social, and cultural implications of works of different times under the concept of “landscape.” The content exhibited ranges from the important paintings produced in the Japanese Rule Period to the collection of Chiayi Art Museum and the contemporary artworks. Amidst the diverse creative forms, we revisit how artists of different times interpret the dialectics of nature and culture in landscape. With juxtaposition of diverse presentations, the Exhibition showcases the journey of modernization of art in Chiayi as well as the landscapes unique to Chiayi, natural and cultural alike.