The Birth of Modernity in Art in Taiwan

A century after the beginning of Japanese rule in Taiwan and the profound cultural transformations that shaped its modern identity, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo presents an exhibition set to rewrite a little-known chapter in the history of East Asian art. From September 5 to December 13, 2026, Synchronic Constellation: Cross-Boundary Perspectives in Art brings together, for the first time in Japan, an unprecedented survey of modern Taiwanese art, placing it in dialogue with Japanese art through more than 300 artworks and some 600 archival materials, including books, magazines, photographs, letters, manuscripts and historical documents. Rather than offering a conventional art-historical survey, the exhibition unfolds as a journey through a constellation of relationships, influences and exchanges that transcend geographical borders, artistic languages and disciplines. Painting, sculpture, photography, literature, cinema, theatre, music and dance are brought together in a narrative that encourages visitors to see the twentieth century not as a linear sequence of events, but as a web of encounters, connections and cultural cross-pollination. The project originates from The Walkers ("Le Moulin"), the 2015 documentary by Taiwanese filmmaker and curator Huang Ya-li, dedicated to the Windmill Poetry Society, the modernist literary group founded in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period of the 1930s. Winner of the Golden Horse Award for Best Documentary, the film avoided a traditional narrative in favour of a mosaic of images, texts and visual associations, inviting viewers to reconstruct the connections between its protagonists. That same editorial approach now becomes the exhibition's curatorial principle, with Huang Ya-li serving as guest curator. Organised into six thematic chapters, the exhibition features loans from more than fifteen Taiwanese museums and collections, including the Tainan Art Museum, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. Alongside key figures of Taiwanese modernism - from Huang Tu-Shui and Chen Cheng-po to Li Mei-shu, Kuo Hsueh-hu, Hong Rui-lin and Chen Hsiayu - are works by important Japanese artists, creating a rare opportunity to examine parallel artistic experiences that developed during the same historical period but have seldom been presented together. One of the exhibition's most distinctive aspects is its extensive use of archival materials, which make up more than half of the display. Rather than functioning as supporting documentation, these books, literary magazines, musical scores, correspondence between artists, photo albums, theatre posters and materials related to Taiwan's Indigenous peoples become essential components of the narrative. Together they reconstruct the cultural ecosystem in which these artworks were created, revealing how closely the visual arts were intertwined with literature, music and intellectual life. This vision is reinforced by the exhibition design conceived by the Taiwanese collective UxU Studio. Reflective surfaces, non-linear pathways and immersive installations transform the galleries into an experiential environment where visitors are encouraged not simply to observe individual works, but to navigate the relationships that connect them. The title, Synchronic Constellation, encapsulates the exhibition's central idea: artists, writers, musicians and intellectuals are imagined as stars that, although separated in space, share the same historical moment and together form invisible constellations. Rather than reconstructing a distant past, the exhibition invites visitors to reconsider the present, revealing how the cultural identities of East Asia emerged through continuous exchanges, shifting boundaries and dialogues whose relevance continues to resonate today.