Introduction by the Director of MOCA, Taipei

Creativity is the Root of Everything

As Taipei city¡¦s designated historic site, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei is a unique case of modern art being infused into old communities in Taipei. The ¡§open¡¨ quality of contemporary art provides a brand new, potential and advanced space for city exchange and culture positioning. More importantly, the quality of ¡§right at the moment¡¨ can arouse public identification to beauty and to further raise cultural life.

The new operating team came to the post in 2006, and brought to us the first exhibition - 50 Years of Italian Fashion to show how master fashion designers broke the commercial, designing and art boundaries to create ¡§classics¡¨ that leave a glorious name. A Glimpse of Contemporary Art in Taiwan focusing on Taiwanese artists and TAT@MOCA 2006 both emphasized on their academic and professional qualities, these two exhibitions aimed at researching, promoting and displaying contemporary culture and art. Slow Tech and Naked Life, on respective, discussed about the value and living attitude between ¡§quick and slow pace¡¨ and explored a specific mode of existence being stripped off existing values. No matter it¡¦s Taiwanese perspective to see the world or the world perspective to see Taiwan, contemporary art creates a cross-culture and cross-boundary space for dialogues.

To provide young artists a place to create freely, MOCA Taipei built an independent space ¡V MOCA Studio in 2006. From the Bringing to View the Invisible Spectacle of Norihisa Hashimoto who has been working with light to the piece of Connected by Traces of Electricity by Tseng Wei-hao showing movements, innovative and mature works created by new artists were seen.

Other than an art exhibition space, MOCA also plays an active role as promoter to help along inter-field exchanges among performance art, visual art and literature art or even enhancing cooperation with enterprises. We¡¦ve been looking for a mutually beneficial partnership. MOCA invited visual artists to work with internationally reputed Hang Tang Yuefu to produce a cross-field performance - Slow Merge. MOCA also worked with Quanta Culture and Education Foundation to co-host A Piece of Cake art education exhibition, through this creative exhibition that made learning fun, we worked together to deep ground our art education.

Moreover, through various art-enterprise cooperation, we have been putting resources to the art environment in Taiwan and to cast more cultural influence on enterprises. EPSON Taiwan has long been the kind sponsor to professional display equipment in MOCA and it also co-host EPSON Photo, Fun Movie activity with MOCA to set a successful example for the art-enterprise cooperation mode. MOCA also worked with Idee Department Store on Valentine¡¦s Day activity ¡V Slow Fly in Love and designing contest ¡V Craving for New Talents. Through partnering, we hope to see art appears in the daily life of common people.

The introduction of DragonFly@MOCA shows the intention of combining art with life. It has brought MOCA new creative space and attracted more visitors from different groups and also enlarged the art proportion in life. From July 2006, MOCA has issued MOCArd pass and released MOCA backpack at the same time to encourage card holders to enjoy all exhibitions and participate in all education programs. With all our efforts, step by step we wish to turn MOCA into a cross-field, cross-industry, compound art fairyland.

Working together with one heart is basic to a sound foundation. Here I¡¦d like to show my gratitude to Cultural Affairs Bureau of Taipei, all the board members of the Foundation, colleagues at MOCA and all the art lovers. The rich fruits came through all of your effort,<