Image: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
The exhibition has opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, beginning with a film about the Windmill Poetry Society, a modernist poetry group formed in Taiwan in the 1930s, and reconsidering modernity in Taiwan and Japan through diverse cultural arts.
Its six chapters combine materials from art, literature, film, music, theatre and dance in a montage-like presentation. The exhibition’s stated aim is to move away from existing narratives and a one-track view of history, framing modernity instead as a set of intersecting relationships suggested by the title’s reference to a cluster of stars.
During Japan’s rule of Taiwan, the Windmill Poetry Society attempted to introduce Surrealism and wrote poetry in Japanese; its members’ Japanese education and study-abroad experience informed efforts to absorb Japanese culture into their own creative work and Taiwanese culture.
The first chapter, ‘Between Translation and Creation,’ focuses on Taiwanese and Japanese works from the first half of the 20th century and asks how Taiwanese artists received, translated and reworked imported educational, artistic and Western intellectual systems. Works by Chen Cheng-po in the chapter include ‘Hand and Foot Sketch—26.5.28’ from 1926 and ‘A Scene in Chiayi Park’ from 1934.
The second chapter, ‘Cities Wrapped in Fantasy,’ examines art shaped by industrialization, urbanization and machine civilization, alongside Japanese proletarian art. Reflective materials integrated into the exhibition space produce ambiguous images that make it difficult for visitors to settle on a single viewpoint.
The exhibition is curated by guest curator and filmmaker Huang Ya-li, co-curator Takahiro Kaneshima and curator Mayu Torigoe, with spatial design by Taiwan-based architecture studio UxU. It includes approximately 200 modern Taiwanese artworks, around 500 documents and approximately 100 Japanese works.
