Walking Through a Decade

Since opening in 2016, the Yu-Hsiu Museum of Art is now celebrating its 10th anniversary—a period that feels long yet has flown by quickly. Reflecting carefully, the daily routines we have maintained in this mountain-embedded museum have, in fact, shed light on those unfinished possibilities through repeated events. Through this exhibition, we can embrace fresh perspectives and sensations, sharing the museum’s founding principles and this decade-long journey.

Upon entering the museum, visitors are immediately drawn to Kneeling Woman, which establishes the museum’s central theme of contemporary realism. Flanking it on both sides and extending into the background are works featuring surreal metaphors that highlight the meanings and spirit of contemporary realism. At the back of the first-floor gallery, classical realist oil paintings by Lee Chu-Hsin, the museum’s founding director, are displayed, marking the beginning of the museum’s story.

Since the museum is nestled between the Wu River and the Jiu Jiu Peaks, the second-floor exhibition space uses imagery from this environment to showcase the aesthetic ideas developed over the past decade. The rich, unique cultural and artistic ecosystem that has grown from this fertile land has fostered special forms of community exchange. In recent years, the museum has focused on programs emphasizing daily aesthetics and cultural experiences while continuously exploring and developing its experimental art projects.

The third-floor space guides visitors back to the museum’s collection, inviting them to explore and reflect on abstract themes like the natural environment, spatiotemporal connections, existence, and death. It also includes artworks exploring vocabulary related to the human experience, such as desire, conflict, and spirituality. The museum’s remote mountain setting, with its distinctive natural and spatial context, plays a crucial role in shaping its curatorial themes and directions for selecting artwork. Moving up to the fourth-floor attic, the artworks in this space create conversations between Taiwan’s streetscapes and those of other countries—highlighting the museum’s goal to serve as a platform for diverse narratives and communities while maintaining an exploratory attitude and a spirit of sharing humanistic stories.