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'The Craze for Prints' Exhibition

  • Publish Date:2020-08-18
'The Craze for Prints' Exhibition

The "Craze for Prints" is a thematic exhibition that reflects how prints affect the social transition and aesthetic trend in the development of regional popular culture and blaze trails in terms of cultural influence.

The exhibition will be showcasing NTMoFA's prints collection, the prize-winning entries to the International Biennial Print Exhibit: ROC over the past years, and priceless collections of prints by world-famous artists.

The earliest man-known prints were graphics produced for mass spreading of religious beliefs. Although printmaking has metamorphosed into a creative medium nowadays, the plural expression and cultural influence of prints still attract many creators’ interest in communicating their ideas with printmaking methods and concepts.

Printmaking has become a powerful medium that reaches beyond boarders, time period and ethnic groups, capable of connecting the communities and stimulating the information flow around the globe.

Accordingly, this exhibition highlights three aspects of the art of printmaking: (1) the generation, dissemination, and evolution of its graphic symbols; (2) its influence in terms of cultural communication; and (3) the transformation of its aesthetic meanings.

The exhibition has been divided into four sections. The first prologue section — "Masters' Classics" — showcases the prints created by world-famous artists with diverse media and forms in the 20th century. Prints are no longer merely literary illustrations or replicas of paintings, but a creative approach to an artists' self-expression.

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The second section — "The Power of Realism" — sets up a display of prints on public discourses and social practice: showing print origins, reveal reconstruct realities, and serve as a driving force behind social awareness.

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The third section — "Modern Trends" — foregrounds the pivotal role of prints in the modern prints movement in Taiwan sparked by occidental thoughts.

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The fourth section — "Contemporary Interpretation" — focuses on contemporary prints, demonstrating how printmaking conveys creativity and intervenes by questioning its own definition.

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This exhibition seeks to explore printmaking’s long-term, profound connections with the public and popular culture from the perspective of the history of visual culture, to unlocking the future potential of printmaking by reference to its portmanteau nature composed of social communication, aesthetic delight, printing technology, and daily life application.

'The Craze for Prints' Exhibition
Date: July 18 – Oct. 11, 2020
Venue: National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts
Address: No. 2 Wuchuan Rd. Section 1, West District, Taichung City, Taiwan