8 Taiwanese artists featured at Massachusetts exhibition on peace

Taipei, Sept. 16 (CNA) A large-scale international art project that includes paintings from eight Taiwanese artists is on display at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts (WAM), United States, inviting visitors to ponder the nature of peace.

"Lee Mingwei: Our Peaceable Kingdom" is curated by Taiwanese contemporary visual artist Lee Mingwei (李明維) and inspired by American folk painter Edward Hicks' famous work "Peaceable Kingdom," which Hicks created around 1833 and is in the museum's collection, Taiwan's Ministry of Culture said in a recent statement.

The exhibition opened on Saturday and features 42 paintings from a lineup of international artists, including eight from Taiwan, according to the ministry, which supported the exhibition, along with the U.S.-based Fletcher Foundation, the ministry said.

The Taiwanese artists are Jeng Jundian (鄭君殿), Huang Ko-wei (黃可維), Jian Yi-hong (簡翊洪), Yen Yu-ting (顏妤庭) , Yeh Tsai-wei (葉采薇) , Hsiao Pei-i (蕭珮宜), Yuyu Chen (陳又伃) and Wu Ta-Kuang (吳大光), it said.

The exhibition also comprises works from Indonesian, German, French, Australian, and American artists, including Worcester locals Emmanuel Manu Opoku, Kat O' Connor, and Susan Hong-Sammons, providing local perspectives for the mental exercise about peace, it said.

Following its debut in 2020 at the Gropius Bau in Berlin, the project has been gradually expanded and has now become a "family tree" of artists across boundaries and generations, it noted.

WAM Director Matthias Waschek underlined the significance of the project being displayed at the home of the piece that inspired it, noting that the exhibition interweaves 19th-century folk painting and pluralistic views by artists from around the globe.

He also invited visitors to ponder what peace means to the city.

The exhibition runs until February 1, with Lee scheduled to give a talk at the museum on Oct. 19 on the show and the concept behind the project.

Lee Mingwei is an internationally acclaimed Taiwanese artist whose participatory installations and performance projects often invite audiences to interact in open settings, exploring themes of trust, intimacy, and self-awareness, the ministry said.

Lee's art has been exhibited at institutions including the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Tate Modern in London, Gropius Bau, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, it added.