For decades, Chiayi has been known as the city of paintings. Through the efforts of numerous artists and artist collectives, the Chiayi Art Museum was inaugurated in 2020. The exhibition “Humanity and the Relational Space – Chen Cheng-Po and the City of Paintings” is based on a group of significant works donated by Chen Cheng-Po Cultural Foundation after the museum's  inauguration. From the works of Chen Cheng-Po (1895-1947) and his collection of paintings and calligraphy, how do we understand the art of Chiayi in the last century? How can we value the modernity of Chiayi from the scale of spatial context?

The concept of the city of paintings was formed in the mid to late 1930s. Based on the Kyoto School philosopher Watsuji Tetsuro's (1889-1960) book Climate and culture: A philosophical study (1935), Taiwanese philosopher Hung Yao-Hsun (1903-1986) developed a “view of climate and culture” to investigate the artistic and cultural development in Taiwan, China and Japan and to explore how natural climate historically produced the sensual experience of art.

The “human” that Watsuji Tetsuro discussed also implies the sense of “interpersonal” or “relationship,” which defines human essence through the relationship between people. Also, the “relational space” is composed of the interaction and exchanges in art between people, which inquires about the state of human existence. In other words, within the relationship between humans and the interactions between humans and nature, relational space is the subject historically created with the other. The exhibition centers around “Chiayi, the City of Paintings,” focusing on the local community where Chen Cheng-Po spent the latter half of his life. It aims to explore how Chen Cheng-Po, who returned to Chiayi after studying in Tokyo and teaching in Shanghai, re-established his painting career within his interpersonal network in Chiayi. In addition, the exhibition will further investigate the mental construction of his local cultural identity.