公告內容：
The National Taiwan University of Art (NTUA) held a press conference to announce debut of the Greater Taipei Biennial of Contemporary Arts at its Art Museum on September 19. Many honored guests arrived at the venue, taking the opportunity to congratulate NTUA on organizing the Greater Taipei Arts Festival 2016 (GTAF 2016) for the first time, which will begin with Greater Taipei Biennial of Contemporary Arts 2016, being able to exhibit a diverse and rich variety of Taiwanese artistic characteristics in a convergence of Eastern and Western art, thus arousing the artistic spirit of local art creativities.
Crossing the oceans, NTUA President Chih-Cheng Chen invited French heavyweight philosophy and sinology master François Jullien to serve as guest curator. He named the theme of this contemporary art biennial “Dé-coïncidence—d’où viennent l’art et l’existence?” (De-coincidence—Where do art and existence come from?), meaning that a few steps back are first taken in order to then facilitate innovation and creativity. From the perspective of philosophical thinking, Jullien hopes that artistic creation can be free of interference, constantly bringing new possibilities to the fore, and said that in today's world, both philosophy and art need to maintain the ability for introspective thinking. NTUA President Chih-Cheng Chen, in his address, touched upon the hope of making a redefinition with this biennial, by putting the focus primarily on nurturing local art, while at the same time broadening its international perspective, in the hope that GTAF 2016 can promote in-depth dialogue between philosophical thinking and works of art.
Apart from Taiwan, this biennial also brought together the works of a total of 30 artists from France, the UK, USA, mainland China, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Italy, Turkey, the Czech Republic and elsewhere, to display in Taiwan. It also brought into use the soon-to-be completely renovated old family residences of high school teachers on the north side of the NTUA campus to serve as a support zone for the exhibition, and integrated this with the school's Museum of Art, to co-construct a new art village. Earlier, Jullien visited the exhibition ground, and was stunned to find the north side of the NTUA campus well retaining its original appearance, subtle and poetic, as if walking in a scene from a Hou Hsiao-Hsien's movie. As a European sinology authority, he is convinced that Taiwan is a place with vision, and a great land of the future, also in the process of “Dé-coïncidence”.
The Greater Taipei Arts Festival 2016 will begin the two-month of exhibition on November 7. For brilliant follow-up messages, please refer to the “Greater Taipei Arts Festival 2016” official Facebook fan page.