Culture Minister Lung Ying-tai expressed her hopes that New York City's elite museums will help train young Taiwanese artists through interchange programs and exchange collections with museums in Taiwan.
Lung has mentioned on several occasions her desire to promote international cultural exchanges, and that was one of her main goals during visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Guggenheim Museum on Thursday.
She vouched for the idea of having Taiwanese artists learn from the elite New York museums and also envisioned professional exchanges where young exhibition planners in Taiwan could have a chance to broaden their international perspectives.
Alexandra Munroe, a Samsung Senior Curator of Asian Arts at the Guggenheim Museum, supported Lung's ideas. Munroe said her museum, which has a comprehensive internship system, is very willing to train outstanding young artists from Taiwan.
She said the Guggenheim has already set up a training and exchange program with Taipei's Museum of Contemporary Art, which allows outstanding Taiwanese artists and exhibition planners to learn from the museum.
Lung was also interested in gaining a better understanding of the New York museums' management systems and learn how they handle their finances and raise funds, but she found that the Metropolitan Museum of Art has struggled in the weak economy.
Maxwell Hearn, the head of the Metropolitan Museum's Department of Asian Arts, noted that the museum's main source of income is not from ticket sales. The facility allows visitors to pay whatever sum for admission they want, resulting in an average ticket price lower than US$12, less than half of the recommended US$25.
Instead, the museum's main source of funding comes from local government subsidies and private donations from entrepreneurs and individuals.
But Hearn said donations from private sources have shrunk in recent years because of the global economic crisis, and the museum has been forced to lay off staff as a result.
Munroe replied that the Guggenheim has been less affected by the world's economic doldrums than the Metropolitan Museum because it is much smaller.
The Guggenheim doesn't have different departments for different types of art either, which prevents infighting between departments over limited resources and leads to a streamlined use of funds, Munroe pointed out.
Lung arrived in New York on Tuesday as part of a tour of North America that runs from Aug. 21 to Sept. 9. She will visit Washington, D.C. on Aug. 27.
