In recent years, controversies surrounding museum directors have become increasingly frequent. Despite the visual art field’s long-standing calls to government for “professional cultural governance,” so-called “professionals” have, in practice, failed to present results or collective credibility that can genuinely persuade art participants or government authorities. A substantial gap has emerged between slogans and actual practice.

ARTouch Editorial Team
2021.09.03

https://artouch.com/art-views/review/content-47992.html

Recently, an unusually heated debate has swept through Taiwan’s art world following artist Jun Yang’s public accusation that Lo Li-chen, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MoCA Taipei), is an “unfit director.” After statements were released by both the former and current directors to clarify their respective positions, further responses followed from the Taipei City Artists’ Union, the Taiwan Visual Arts Association, as well as the directors of the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts and Kunsthaus Graz, among others.

As the controversy continued for nearly a month, it inevitably evoked memories of the intensity surrounding the 2012 Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) “Taiwan Pavilion” controversy. Nearly a decade has passed. Circumstances have shifted, but a basic question remains difficult to avoid: have the internal and external problems of art institutions—and the structural predicament of arts administration—actually changed? Do the organizations and individuals who spoke out in 2012 still uphold the same critical standards and positions today?

This article is based on an interview with Hsu Fong-Ray, co-curator at TKG+ Projects, one of the collaborative sites of Artists, Collaborators, Their Exhibition and Three Sites. I respond here from the perspective of personal participation.

Q:

At this moment—when the physical exhibition tied to the Jun Yang case has already ended—the controversy has triggered a wave of doubt about professional legitimacy within museum systems. Artists, Collaborators, Their Exhibition and Three Sites attempts to offer examples of works that continue institutional critique even after an exhibition ends. How should we define “institutional critique”? And how do you view the Jun Yang case being framed as “institutional critique”?

Hsu:

If this controversy had not happened, I think it would have been difficult for Artists, Collaborators, Their Exhibition and Three Sites to truly resonate with the reality that institutional critique claims to address. For me, the more interesting question is this: Was the current situation something already presupposed before Jun Yang even submitted his proposal to MoCA Taipei? Obviously not—because no one could have predicted that the museum director would suddenly be replaced.

If we remove the original exhibition proposal—something we can no longer fully reconstruct—and rely on an unexpected dispute that “fell from the sky” to turn the project into a perfect demonstration of institutional critique, then what we are doing is a kind of opportunistic hero-making. I doubt that this is what Jun Yang himself intended to stage.

From the beginning, many commentaries shifted quickly from “the museum director made inappropriate remarks implying discrimination” toward “the bureaucratic mechanisms of public cultural institutions,” “the civil-service mentality of art institutions,” “interest-group resource allocation,” “structural corruption particular to Taiwan’s visual art field,” and “collective silence.” Through the accumulation of online discourse—public or anonymous—these so-called critical angles have proliferated. Beyond the obvious positions of those directly involved, the overall atmosphere has already presupposed that the “participants” of the visual arts field are structural accomplices. And yet, paradoxically, this discourse still requires the support (or defection) of these very “participants” in order to mobilize them once again—often reduced to nothing more than the arithmetic of likes and shares. This does little to address the central question that the controversy supposedly raised: the issue of an “unfit director.”

As for whether Lo Li-chen, Director of MoCA Taipei, is fit for the position, the matter itself has already been sufficiently clear. I will not repeat the details here. What I do want to address is the set of critiques recently offered by many “professionals”—a kind of reflection that may be cheap, but occasionally carries the smell of justice.

This situation has made those inside Taiwan’s visual art field feel profoundly uncomfortable. Whether one chooses to follow it closely or to remain indifferent, we have all, in one way or another, become “unfree participants.” As architect and critic Ruan Ching-yueh wrote in a personal post, he was “surprised and disappointed” to see that the recent controversy between Jun Yang and MoCA Taipei produced, within Taiwan’s art world, an eerie and abnormal quiet—“neither storm nor sunshine.” I, too, feel surprised and disappointed—not only by the silence, but also by how easily the term “institutional critique” has been mobilized as a shortcut. In practice, this convenience unintentionally dilutes what initially began with a director’s implied discrimination and the question of fitness for office, and redirects attention once again toward the timeless villains: “official policy,” “art institutions,” and “structural mechanisms.” At the same time, the artist is re-heroized and lifted back to a moral high ground as if to “correct course”—yet the problem becomes even more unfocused.

It is almost unbelievable that the “critical model” of more than a decade ago can remain usable for so long. Is it simply too useful? Or does the discourse of “institutional critique” itself urgently require updating?

I once believed institutional critique was a tool held by those who speak in the name of justice—something used to stand up for society. But the phenomenon of increasingly scholastic rhetoric has turned it into a kind of “imperial sword,” carried from the palace into the martial world to “do good and eliminate evil.” Yet who gets to decide what is good and what is evil? Compared to hoping that one might happen to encounter someone who holds that sword, I would rather—even if opportunists mock me as naïve—insist on strengthening reasonable legal and procedural mechanisms within institutions, mechanisms that genuinely allow cultural workers to participate and allow grievances to function normally.

The contradiction of institutional critique lies precisely here. Whatever one’s political position or writing style, it is inevitably a position. It will be automatically categorized by today’s networked discourse. It also inevitably invites scrutiny regarding overlaps with interests and with the positions of stakeholders involved in the event. This is what open participation must face. It is also what many statements describe when they emphasize “dialogue” and “communication.” We cannot simply classify these voices as moral or interest-driven and sort them accordingly. Nor should we ignore our own actions and throw those who participate onto a battlefield where they must fight to the death.

Some support Jun Yang. Some support Lo Li-chen. Some eat sunflower seeds and watch. This is as democratic and free as it gets—what is wrong with that? For many precarious art workers, unless your interests are directly bound to mine, or unless you will stand up for me when I need help, “making discourse public” does not equal “making the event public.” As The Great Buddha+ suggests, the justice politicians shout about cannot outrun class reproduction; what is ultimately voiced is still “one’s own voice.” Action matters more than rhetoric.

Do not forget the 2012 Venice Biennale controversy involving TFAM. If we are talking about national discrimination, then in that case, who—what “mechanism”—could speak for the foreign artist who participated? Among the “participants” who criticized TFAM and Lü Dai-ru at the time, when similar issues arise again today (setting aside the director’s individual remarks), are their original intentions still the same? How can the coldness and heat of different moments—this time and that time—be called participation? This is precisely the structure that people keep bringing up. It is also the deepest contradiction of moralistic, self-righteous speech: when everyone is equally inside it, we cannot morally judge others—we can only morally judge ourselves, and practice self-critique.

(Recently, the controversy between Jun Yang and Lo Li-chen, Director of MoCA Taipei, has once again reminded people of the contentious 2012 TFAM “Taiwan Pavilion” event. Editorial archive.)

As for the “evil” of art institutions, bureaucracy, and government—maybe some readers, like me, have noticed this: whenever institutional critique becomes difficult to articulate clearly, people simply push everything onto conceptual targets. It is like sweeping garbage under the sofa and declaring the living room clean. When one cannot provide clear evidence, cannot point to the key persons, matters, and responsibilities with precision, is this not another cynical contradiction of critique?

If today the director’s response or non-response cannot calm the controversy, then the level that needs to be raised is not an ambiguous set of concepts like “the official,” “art institutions,” or “structures.” Nor is it to carry out mass online assaults as if sweeping data. What matters is to bring public matters into public mechanisms—as citizens, to demand clear responses from the highest responsible authorities: Tsai Tsung-hsiung, Director-General of the Department of Cultural Affairs of the Taipei City Government, and Huang Wen-yen, Managing Director of the Taipei Culture Foundation.

Of course, from the perspective of the artist: if these two highest authorities respond with cold avoidance and silence, then it may be wiser to convert “public insult” into formal legal action, to proceed with a substantiated complaint through official channels regarding the claim of an “unfit director,” and to make use of Taiwan’s Public Policy Network Participation Platform to argue, publicly, the truths and justice each side insists upon.

Core participants in the art world may reject the inefficacy of existing art mechanisms. But how can one then reject the alleged inefficacy of social mechanisms altogether? How can one deny the efficacy of social movements that have, quite literally, changed policies in the streets? If this is (or claims to be) public affairs, then let public institutions with legal credibility establish the facts. Do not retreat into conspiracy or defeatism, endlessly repeating that nothing is possible, thereby cutting the connection between art and society once again. This, too, repeats the contradiction of institutional critique when it borrows political-science terminology in a habitual, formulaic way.

The idea of “institutional bureaucratization,” and the backlash it produces against institutions, is something that must be handled with care. A strong example is the public statement issued by Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, in which Director Huang Chien-hung wrote, in effect, that we cannot ignore how national cultural policy shapes the discursive field of art; moreover, it can bureaucratize institutions, turning critical discourse into politically correct propaganda. He further pointed out that the problems triggered by Jun Yang’s collaboration exhibition with MoCA Taipei exposed a fully bureaucratized network of interpersonal overlaps, a conservatism shaped by the dual desires of the global and the local, a tendency to respect power structures while neglecting institutional workers’ rights, and a system serving national identity and local ideology.

I think what needs to be done is to actually carry out—and clearly articulate—the part about “professionalism” and “social communication.” The critique being made here was triggered by the conduct of Lo Li-chen as an individual, was it not? Or, if this phenomenon has always existed, why were past cases insufficient for people to speak out as they do now?

We must make a clear distinction between the individual and the institution. Do not say that because she is the director of MoCA Taipei, one cannot separate individual conduct from the institution. That would contradictorily affirm the very logic critics claim to oppose: that “individual will equals institutional totality.” This kind of indiscriminate, map-cannon critique is equally worrying.

An institution is not formed only by regulations, policies, and leadership. It is also built by the collective labor of countless cultural workers who have committed themselves to making it function. For those who do not understand—or have never actually participated in—how institutions operate, it is easy to project fantasies onto the institution: yes, the director is responsible as a decision-maker, but that is only one side. The staff who execute the work are often the closest frontline comrades—yet that is also only one side. Only together do these form an institution.

It is wrong to treat the institution as a screen for projecting fantasies about internal operations or management. Not everyone inside an institution behaves in the ways critics imagine. This discourse strikes heavily at all cultural workers within “art institutions” across Taiwan. Whether frontline staff or managers, they each face internal reasons and constraints that outsiders often cannot understand. Unless illegality is involved, it is difficult—and inappropriate—to romanticize exposure as if in a weekly scandal magazine: “make it public.”

These are not abstract targets. They involve the concrete, everyday realities of workplace relations, organizational life, and personal career planning. Why must your justice be paid for by someone else’s life? Why should another person’s life be judged by your morality?

Compared to bloodthirsty media-style bombardment, what is happening now is that the director’s discriminatory implication (and the question of fitness, which is secondary) is being blurred, while an entire institution is being swept aside with one stroke—as if institutions are nothing but “arts administration.” The same stroke then flips the entire cultural ecosystem, as if its development were not co-built by institutions, cultural producers, arts administrators, government, and the market together. I still insist: strengthen legal and procedural mechanisms, so that participation can be real and grievances can function normally.

“Hierarchical inequality” should not be reduced to a politically correct slogan. It should not manufacture antagonism among participants by producing a sense of deprivation, nor should it be used as emotional blackmail to mobilize votes. The value of this incident lies in reflecting on how critique mechanisms become political weapons rather than ways to solve problems. At the same time, the art world must turn back and examine the long-ignored group that has endured constant accusations and discrimination—arts administrators and managers—who are perhaps the most invisible vulnerable group extended by this controversy.

I hope that what emerges from the MoCA Taipei controversy is not simply the replacement of one director, but a clear, transparent public commitment by the Taipei Culture Foundation regarding its governance of MoCA Taipei. Under such large-scale mobilization of public attention and resources, free and unfree participants alike are watching.

Q:

In the Jun Yang case, the main battlefield of conflict has been MoCA Taipei. Within cultural institutions, how can similar situations of information asymmetry be prevented—so that the balance among artists, administrators, management, and the distribution between private and public exhibition budgets can be better protected?

Hsu:

What I can explain is this: when the trumpet of justice sounds the phrase “hierarchical inequality,” what is truly unequal is often how information is unequally operated. This is a subtle but crucial point. It can even carry a kind of stereotyped ideology—a blind critique of government and capital.

For example: a manager says to colleagues in the office, “I think this artist is great—maybe we can invite them for an exhibition.” A colleague, excited, happens to run into the artist and mentions it. But the invitation is never executed. Is that the manager issuing a false promise to the artist?

Or: in an internal meeting about budget, management says, “We hope to keep this around 150,000 to 300,000 NTD, but the final decision depends on the actual proposal.” An administrator, excited, tells the artist, “The institution said it can go up to 300,000.” Can the manager then go back and say, “Sorry, that’s not what I meant”?

Or: accountants review reimbursements and find that receipts do not match eligible expense categories. An administrator relays this requirement. Does that automatically become “the institution making things difficult”?

Between management and staff, there is a communication interface. Between different administrative groups, there is another interface. Between frontline administrators and the artist/curator, there is yet another interface. Not every institution can operate with the horizontal informality of a small independent space. These gaps and frictions are especially common in mid-sized institutions with a certain scale. Yet for those who have never experienced or understood institutional operating modules, these communication problems are quickly simplified into “hierarchy” and “bureaucracy.” Once again, it reveals how weak—and lazy—the art world’s imagination remains when it comes to cultural management and arts administration.

Beyond being an invisible vulnerable group, what is the “professionalism” of arts administrators, compared to the “professionalism” of curators and artists? The most precious professional qualities of arts administration are careful coordination and communication. With the institution’s mission and goals as a premise, administrators work to produce outcomes that both the institution and the artists/curators can accept. This is the first task of professional arts administration.

Inevitably there will be collisions, disputes, misunderstandings. That is exactly what “professional arts administration” must balance—and exactly the hardship the job must bear. Art is a human industry. As an administrator, one cannot emotionally take the side of any party. One must place oneself last, taking care of everyone involved. Only then can outcomes be acceptable for the institution, the artist, and the curator. Only then can one say the “professionalism” of arts administration has been accomplished.

As an arts administrator, one often faces “things verbally assigned by supervisors” and “requests raised by artists.” The issue is how to maintain two layers of trust: trust inside the institution and trust outside the institution. Together, they form the core of institutional operation.

Inside the institution: if an institution has little work, why would it need management? The responsibility of management is to integrate multiple tasks. Essentially, most institutional business becomes management’s responsibility. To be able to bear responsibility is the basis of internal trust. This is why you often see cultural managers doing the thing they do most: apologizing. Why do they apologize? Because responsibility is theirs.

Outside the institution: trust is built on long-term commitments to the ecosystem and to participants, and on the evaluations of past collaborators. In the MoCA Taipei controversy, conflict erupted precisely at the moment of leadership transition. A new leader should not rush to become a heroic achiever. A “new beginning” requires care for the existing team in order to start properly.

Q:

The Jun Yang controversy has created mistrust and rupture between institutional management and exhibition administrators. Management will likely enforce stricter control over procedures, and the contract system will become more legalized and process-driven. Is this truly a good direction for exhibition production, artists, and administrators?

Hsu:

Contracts matter—very much. The art world often says: “Exhibitions usually start first and the contract comes later. This is a bad habit and a structural problem.” This statement is both right and not entirely right.

Most exhibitions, if they respect the other institution, will involve responsible people clearly explaining the space, the schedule, and the budget range in the first meeting. They will not speak vaguely. This is built on trust in each other’s professionalism. If there has been no prior collaboration and no basis of trust, then doesn’t the contract become even more important?

The risk of “starting first” is precisely built on a premise—either trust in the institution, or one’s own expectations and wager on opportunity. “Invitations come late, so we have no choice but to start first.” This is not a good excuse. If there is no trust foundation, or if one already knows problems will arise, then why insist on participating? Only the individual knows: perhaps it is a wager on opportunity, a wager on a stage. The risk is right there.

Either there is trust between the institution and the artist/curator, and the risk is something the latter has evaluated and can accept—then proceed. Or there is no such foundation, and if one still insists on doing it, then insist on signing the contract before moving, or accept the risk plainly. Is that truly complicated?

I am not endorsing rushed scheduling. It reveals each institution’s professionalism and long-term vision. Nor am I making a defeatist claim that contracts are useless. I am saying: if we all agree this is a bad culture, then why not start with ourselves?

This MoCA Taipei controversy, in my view, is not simply about Jun Yang and Director Lo Li-chen, nor is it a matter of factional confrontation. I must remind readers again: objectively speaking, Jun Yang is not structurally weak. Supporters should not construct a narrative of deprivation to establish an image of weakness. This is not beneficial for Jun Yang. At the same time, he was exhibiting across three major spaces in Taipei, and well-known academics spoke out in his support. Ask yourself: how many cultural workers who suffered similar injustices in the past and tried to speak out could ever have such conditions? Not the curator of the Venice Biennale controversy in 2012. Not you. Not me.

What concerns me is this: museums becoming instrumentalized by those in charge, the professional hijacking of critique mechanisms, and the deeper impact of this controversy on art institutions, arts administration, and cultural management labor.

Contradictions have accumulated to the point that institutional critique in Taiwan has almost become a joke. If one says that the overused term “institutional critique” has already lost effectiveness in Taiwan, I do not think that is an exaggeration. It has begun to resemble the populism of anonymous platforms; together with the interest groups, the structures, and the mechanisms it claims to oppose, it becomes another beast. What we are witnessing is a war of power transfer and institutional replication.

All of this leaves “unfree participants” feeling uneasy and afraid. If this is what “publicness” means, then readers might as well wash up and go to sleep. If we cannot rebuild mechanisms for Taiwan’s visual art field under these discourses of critique—if we cannot rebuild anything beyond the ruined spectacle of an institutional leader and an artist at war—then even if Director Lo steps down in the end, the apparent winner may win face but lose substance, and will not earn respect.

We need to be calmer at this moment. We need a sincere and transparent attitude, and we need to face these difficulties with genuine empathy.

I have no intention of joining the detective line—guessing, “proving,” and throwing mud over who lied. The internet is already full of detailed compilations and insider accounts. The facts are also clear: the Jun Yang controversy began with the issue of a museum director implying discrimination toward an artist, and only later formally escalated into the debate over the director’s fitness for office.

First: if supporters believe the evidence is sufficient, then file suit as soon as possible—return justice to the artist who was publicly insulted. And since this has become a public matter, make the litigation outcome transparent, so that those who have followed the controversy can also receive legal clarity and support.

Second: the Taipei Culture Foundation must have its own internal investigation and review report. I strongly recommend that the foundation release the results and hold a public briefing, so that the art world’s concerns can be heard openly.

Taipei City held public forums during the 2012 Venice Biennale controversy at TFAM. In 2020, during the TFAM controversy surrounding “Secret South,” Mayor Ko Wen-je demonstrated administrative efficiency and quickly concluded that a demerit would suffice. Today, is the Taipei Culture Foundation—because it does not have to face legislative questioning—able to ignore a foundation that, in many ways, requires the precision of a specialist surgeon? And after Mayor Ko’s re-election is no longer at stake, does that mean the foundation can simply be left untouched?

Recommendations Looking Forward

Through this incident, I would propose several suggestions for the future:

1. I call on the Taipei City Government and relevant authorities to consider establishing independent oversight groups within institutions under their jurisdiction (rather than relying on the mailbox of the highest responsible person). Such groups should provide complaint channels and objective supervision mechanisms, protecting cultural workers’ rights and addressing disputes arising from hierarchical inequality.

Anonymous platforms initially appeared under the claim that they could function as protective mechanisms for the weak—countering structural power in the visual arts and preventing retaliation in conflicts of interest. In reality, they have increasingly become tools for spreading hatred, black letters, gossip, and insinuation. Even if they can exert some pressure on power under hierarchical inequality, they do not help the cultural environment or cultural development; they function mostly as channels for emotional venting.

2. I recommend that the Ministry of Culture, the National Culture and Arts Foundation, and municipal cultural bureaus use this incident to reexamine and “update” jury and review lists within cultural funding systems. After cases are reviewed or selected, institutions should make public the methods and rationales for selecting jurors; annually disclose how many cases each juror reviews; and introduce term limits so that within a certain period (perhaps two years), jurors do not repeatedly serve in similar roles for similar kinds of cases.

Taiwan’s art world is not lacking new and mid-career forces. Outstanding cultural workers are dispersed across different regions; they are capable of breaking and changing the long-criticized structure of entrenched interest groups. If government and official departments are willing to invest real attention in observing and researching appropriate candidates—rather than worshiping authority and titles—the ecosystem can gradually change.

3. Art institutions should strengthen contract-signing procedures, and should not shift pressure onto invited artists by citing tight schedules. A complete contract system is a basic condition for protecting both sides.

4. Beyond the problem of public museums becoming instrumentalized by those in charge, Taiwan’s visual art field must return to the long-ignored and long-blamed arts administrators and managers—arguably the most invisible vulnerable group extended by this controversy—and reopen transparent dialogue with art institutions.

Critiques like “bureaucracy” and “civil-service mentality” often equate institutions and mechanisms with the highest responsible person, presupposing a single target. This reveals unfamiliarity with institutions and arts administration, an unwillingness to understand, and a projection of self-centered positions. In practice, such discourse heavily injures the most basic frontline level of the cultural ecosystem.

In recent years, controversies over “directors” have become frequent. Under the art world’s long-standing calls to government for “professional cultural governance,” “professionals” have not been able to produce convincing results or cohesion that can persuade participants and government. The gap between slogans and practice has become enormous.

The problem is that both government and professional cultural workers often imagine directors primarily through their assumed social and academic status, and use that imagination as a tool of “distribution.” This ignores a far more important dimension: operational experience and institutional research. This neglect extends to arts administrators as well. It overlooks the fact that the cultural ecosystem is co-built as a whole by institutions, cultural producers, arts administrators, government, and the market.