Incubation Time: Retrospective Survey and Re-Evaluation of NCAF Curatorial Grants

I.    Introduction

The National Culture and Arts Foundation (NCAF) launched the Production Grants to Independent Curators in Visual Arts (PGICVA) in 2004 to provide larger grants for specific curatorial projects. In response to the increasingly international subject matters of Taiwanese curators' research and curatorship, a grant for phase I, preliminary residential research projects was added in 2012. After completing a phase I international residential research project, grant recipients can plan a phase II exhibition based on their research findings. The Curator's Incubator Program started as the Curator's Incubator Program @ Hong-Gah Museum in 2010. The program involved matching Hong-Gah Museum with up-and-coming curators to help these new curators plan their first comparatively complete exhibition with the support of an institution. Since 2013, the program was expanded to include collaborations with other institutions (Curator's Incubator Program @ Museums). Not only did this provide curators with a wider variety of partner museums to choose from, but it also greatly increased the number of spaces available to grant programs.

As of today, nearly 18 years have elapsed since NCAF began organizing the PGICVA. The Curator's Incubator Program, on the other hand, has been around for nearly 12 years. The two programs have appropriately provided resources for Taiwan's curatorial development in the field of visual arts. Many curators who participated in the two programs early on are now important figures in the field of visual arts curatorship and have continued to perform professional work in the curational sector. Therefore, this is a good time to look back on the development trajectory of the two programs. We have already seen a lot of comprehensive discussions around Taiwan's history of visual arts curatorship, the construction of curatorial education, and curatorial grant mechanisms in a series of lectures and articles over the past few years. Therefore, in this study, the author places a greater emphasis on learning about the professional development of curators to redefine and understand anew these two programs established by NCAF and reflect on future possibilities accordingly.

Taiwan's arts and cultural funding policies have gradually shifted their focus from "objects", events and individual projects, to "people", the training of professionals in the field. The two NCAF programs were an indicator of such a shift. Visual arts curatorship, in particular, relies heavily on the curator or curating team and the artistic and managerial work they bring to the table based on their intangible assets like knowledge, experience, and connections. It is based on these views that the author hopes to understand anew the contemporary significance of these two programs and how they supported or hindered the personal career development of curators from the perspective of the curators themselves.

To this end, the author has interviewed 11 curators (Attachment 1). The interviewees selected for this study include 4 curators who participated in the PGICVA, 3 who participated in the Curator's Incubator Program, and 4 who participated in both. The curators invited by the author to take part in this study have all continued to present complete projects in relevant fields to this day. Therefore, these interviews can also be seen as a retrospective and discussion on how the two NCAF programs influenced the development of Taiwan's curatorial field based on the personal experiences of professional curators.

II.    Spearheading Taiwanese Contemporary Art Curatorship and Free Spaces

Looking at the PGICVA in the 2000s, we can see that the program was still in an exploratory phase. Before the Curator's Incubator Program was established in 2010, the PGICVA was an important grant program focused on curatorship. Also, referencing the typical exhibition budgets of independent curatorial projects at the time, the PGICVA was indeed one of the more generous grant programs of its time.

In the 2000s, contemporary art curatorship in Taiwan was still in its infancy: In 2004, while the first PGICVA was accepting submissions, the Taipei Biennial, which had a collaborative curating system in its early days, was in its third year. The Venice Biennial Taiwan Pavilion, which began encouraging Taiwanese curators by putting out open calls in 1999, was also in its third year. Aside from these two important curatorial platforms, Taiwan did not have a lot of resources to help curators show off their skills. Most exhibition resources were in the hands of public institutions. Even if curators were fortunate enough to execute a curatorial project at a museum, they might not receive sufficient support from said museum.

Looking at the PGICVA during this time, one can realize that the program provided timely financial support for many curatorial projects. Examples include Trading Place: Contemporary Art Museum (2005) curated by Chien-Hui Kao, the first (2004) grantee of the program, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (MoCA Taipei); Altered States (2006) curated by Amy Huei-Hwa Cheng, the second (2005) grantee of the program, at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM); Good Gangsters (2008) curated by Esther Lu, the third (2007) grantee of the program, at TFAM; Life Ammo (2011) curated by Hong-John Lin, the fourth (2008) grantee of the program, at MoCA Taipei; and In Sight -Tracing the Photography Studio Images of the Japanese Period in Taiwan (2010) curated by Yun-Ping Chien, the fifth (2009) grantee of the program, at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA).

Under the circumstances of the time, the PGICVA did indeed offer the above curators certain resources that allowed them a degree of freedom to operate without being completely dependent on museum funding. However, we can see that under such circumstances, the PGICVA was just fueling existing projects in a more passive way. Curator Esther Lu said〔1〕in her interview: I didn't apply for the program until I'd planned a complete structure and secured a time slot at TFAM for the Good Gangsters exhibition. From this, we can see that the PGICVA still played a more supportive role. Nonetheless, the author believes that there are two project grantees during this period particularly worth discussing: The first is the project grant Sandy Hsiu-Chih Lo applied for in 2005, for the 2006 exhibit Exorcising Exoticism. The second is the project grant Chien-Hong Huang applied for in 2008, for the 2009 exhibit POST.O: The Reverse of TOPOS.

Curator Sandy Hsiu-Chih Lo's Exorcising Exoticism was an extension of her collaborative curatorial project Utopia of Togetherness: The 2nd Taipei Public Art Festival (2005), which used the concept of arts engagement in public spaces to put on a "street art festival". The concept of Sandy Hsiu-Chih Lo's work was to subvert the stereotypical perception of public spaces in Xinyi Special District as commercial spaces. The project not only inserted contemporary art into everyday commercial areas through the curating of an art festival, but also presented a satirical reflection. Chien-Hong Huang's POST.O: The Reverse of TOPOS, on the other hand, attempted to put on a "large-scale" joint exhibition different from biennial exhibitions by working with the artist collective Open Contemporary Art Center (OCAC). In the interview, Chien-Hong Huang stated〔2〕that since he could not afford to rent the main exhibition venue of MoCA Taipei at the time, he experimented with connecting the museum's alternative spaces, from alternative spaces in Zhongshan Metro Mall and display walls to light boxes, forming quite a complete joint exhibition by experimentally piecing up such areas.

POST.O: The Reverse of TOPOS (2010 PGICVA-funded exhibition), curated by Chien-Hong Huang and exhibited at Taipei Metro ZhingShang Umderground
 

In the cases of Exorcising Exoticism and POST.O: The Reverse of TOPOS, the PGICVA appropriately supported the diversification proposed by the exhibitions, and was an important promoter in these two curators' early curatorial careers. In the case of almost all interviewees: Both the curators who were recipients of the PGICVA and those who later participated in the Curator's Incubator Program mentioned how NCAF played a neutral role and did not interfere with the content and artistic expression of the grantees' projects. Though the funding provided by NCAF was somewhat lacking compared to that of museums and other institutions, it was nevertheless a sum that could be utilized with relative freedom. Therefore, projects that deviated from the ideas of traditional museum spaces and those with special research topics could be presented to certain degree within this limited space. Most interviewees had a positive experience regarding the freedom of the programs. You could even say that in recent years, with the two NCAF programs gradually having more complete, professional curatorial work done in institutions, they have become important ways for curators to realize their passion projects.

III.    The Necessity/Dispensableness of a Competitive Stage and Institutionalization

To make up for the shortcomings of the PGICVA, the Curator's Incubator Program began to target up-and-coming curators to cultivate the new generation of Taiwanese curators. From a survivor's biased point of view, the grantees of the Curator's Incubator Program do have a high overlap with current heavyweights of Taiwan's curatorial circle. Most of the grantees were already working at institutions and galleries or engaged in the industry as independent curators or related professionals. That is why understanding anew what they gained and did not gain from this program has its importance.

Earlier in this article, the author described the level of freedom offered by the two NCAF programs, but judging from the Curator's Incubator Program, although there was a degree of freedom with regard to the content of individual exhibitions, the program still had an awkward competitive quality in terms of program structure. This competitiveness was most noticeable in the first three years of the Curator's Incubator Program @ Hong-Gah Museum: During this time, the three grantees each year had to present three exhibitions at the same time. That is also why some interviewees stated that taking part in the Curator's Incubator Program at this stage did not allow them to focus solely on the content and artistry of the exhibition. Instead, the ability to negotiate for a more advantageous exhibition space took on more prominence.

The interviewees showed divided opinions about whether competition is necessary: Although some interviewees said that competition can serve as an external push for grantees to elevate their curatorial abilities, others believed that such a competitive structure interfered with the freedom of independent curatorial work. However, most interviewees also said that, since the Curator's Incubator Program @ Museums in 2013, the arena-like atmosphere of presenting three exhibitions in one space has been toned down, giving curators' exhibitions more space to shine. Curator Chun-Chieh Lai said〔3〕in the interview: Since the Curator's Incubator Program has the unavoidable qualities of a "competition" or "rookie draft", why not lean into the competitiveness and public relations aspect like similar awards abroad and establish a clear separation between the Curator's Incubator Program and standard grants?

Regarding the Curator's Incubator Program, the interviewees' opinions also differed, particularly on its coordinating role for institutional integration. The Curator's Incubator Program not only gives up-and-coming curators the opportunity to curate exhibitions in formal exhibition venues but also has the subtext of helping these curators understand/integrate into institutional culture. Although many interviewees stated that the experience was helpful to the work they are currently doing in institutions to some degree or other, there are also those who raised objections. Curator Fong-Ray Hsu believes〔4〕that the most distinctive trait of NCAF programs is their level of freedom. Therefore, he would like to see this freedom being used to challenge the limitations of institutions instead of self-imposing restriction within institutions' standard curatorial model. In his curatorial project DisOrder Exhibition／in Order (2013), the curator placed all the exhibited artworks and art events in a partner furniture store, instead turning the exhibition venue of Hong-Gah Museum into a sales center for that furniture store. This type of curatorial strategy based on the exhibition mechanism itself is still rarely found in Taiwan's art museums.

DisOrder Exhibition／in Order (2012 Curator's Incubator Program @ Museums recipient), curated by Fong-Ray Hsu and exhibited at Hong-Gah Museum 

Curator Yu-Ling Chou also stated〔5〕in her interview that the project she did when participating in the Curator's Incubator Program @ Museums can be seen as the result of her subject of interest while studying abroad and the field surveys she conducted with friends after returning to Taiwan. Now that she is working in an institution, she doesn't have that many opportunities to present her past research in a more integrated manner. The feedback from several interviews once again lays emphasis on the importance of the two NCAF programs in terms of personal practice and freedom of curatorship. As for whether the two programs directly helped the grantees' careers, most of the interviewees stated that, if anything, the programs assisted their careers in terms of practice and experience, or yielded more indirect benefits instead of contributing directly by bringing them more attention or career opportunities.

IV.    Matters the NCAF Programs Have Not Yet Done/Overdone

In this study project, interviewees including Esther Lu and Yen-Hsiang Fang all pointed out how the design of the program directly influences/limits grantees' outcomes. The two NCAF programs indeed make it easier for grantees to gravitate towards exhibition production. Some interviewees also expressed that such mechanisms bettered the grantees' practical curating skills but at the same time limited possibilities for art projects to develop and grow.

Esther Lu stated that she thinks the current project design is over-oriented towards exhibition production and that, although it can train grantees in task coordination, it also limits the possibilities of art projects. Curator Yen-Hsiang Fang stated〔6〕in his interview that, if he could participate in a NCAF program again, he would focus more on activities other than the exhibition itself, as to expand the definition and possibilities of exhibitions through these activities. Many interviewees, including Yen-Hsiang Fang, mentioned that the current NCAF programs seem to imply some kind of default path. A kind of development path for up-and-coming curators started to emerge: first, the Curator's Incubator Program @ Museums, then, the phase I overseas residential research of the PGICVA, and finally, the phase II exhibition production of said program. However, does this path limit our ideas of what curators can do? Does it exclude curators that are not suited for this development path?

A considerable number of interviewees provided many observations regarding the relationship between curators and institutions: The transition of the Curator's Incubator Program from collaborating exclusively with Hong-Gah Museum to working with multiple museums tempered its competitive characteristic, but many interviewees also found that administrative resources and marketing ability differ between institutions, resulting in larger gaps between the situations faced by different grantees. Although this more or less reflects the current state of the curatorial sector in Taiwan, it is worth considering whether the main purpose of the Curator's Incubator Program is to help up-and-coming curators get an early taste of the curatorial industry or focus on more comprehensive marketing and exposure of their ideas and research results.

Unlike the Curator's Incubator Program, the PGICVA is typically defined as a resource for more mature curators with a certain degree of experience or professional ability, so it doesn’t have the same matchmaking mechanism in which the NCAF serves as an intermediary between curators and institutions. Nicole Yi-Hsin Lai, director of Chiayi Art Museum, was a phase I residential research project grantee of the PGICVA. In her interview, she stated〔7〕that, because the system often made it hard for phase I residential research grantees to confirm collaboration with institutions in Taiwan, grantees had to establish contact with overseas institutions as "independent curators". Under these circumstances, said Nicole Yi-Hsin Lai, the institutions that curators were able to secure collaboration with in the end were often smaller venues or independent spaces, which somewhat limited project development possibilities and fell short of expectations for phase II of the program.

In his article "Whose anxiety? Whose international? The Difficulties of Curatorial Education in Taiwan", curator Fong-Ray Hsu talks〔8〕about how the two current NCAF programs lack the kind of hierarchical system that performing arts incubation mechanisms have, and how they overly limit the development of curatorial paths and forms. Also, the design of the current system lacks imagination in terms of inter-disciplinary collaborations and fails to disrupt the nature of Taiwan's curatorial doing. Of course, it is quite impossible to expect NCAF grant programs to change the ecosystem of the entire sector, but like Fong-Ray Hsu said, how can we engage in a more serious discussion around contemporary art in Taiwan through curatorial doing when curators rely on grants and become some kind of "outsourced civil servant"?

V.    Future Outlook

This study project reorganized the old and new problems found with the two NCAF programs. These problems include overly uniform formats and rigid development paths. However, the author believes that the above issues are relatively easy to fix. Redesign and rearrangement of the system can address the general doubts raised by the interviewees to some degree and bring the programs more in line with latest international trends of curatorial development. The author, on the other hand, believes that the harder issues to resolve are the fundamental questions of need and purpose.

The PGICVA was established in response to the lack of specific curatorial grants in Taiwan at the time, while the Curator's Incubator Program was established in response to the demand of curatorial talent cultivation and resources in the 2010s. Both programs appropriately addressed the needs of the time, but the discussion on their purpose has been shelved to this day. Curator Chien-Hong Huang said in his interview: The POST.O: The Reverse of TOPOS exhibition was actually a response to the 2008 Taipei Biennial. Notwithstanding, from a practical standpoint, its budget was less than a tenth of the Taipei Biennial's, which somewhat limited the role of the NCAF's grant programs.

Although freedom is an important value of the two NCAF grant programs, any medium-sized grant can offer some degree of creative freedom to its grantee. Judging from their current funding structure, the two programs—whether they play the role of a medium-sized program between small independent projects and large exhibitions in public museums or a transitional phase in the career of curators before they enter an institution or engage in a large project—cannot be separated from the role of incubator. Therefore, the NCAF needs to redefine and adjust its role.

With nearly 20 years of experience, the two NCAF programs should not be limited to facilitating events. Their greatest value, like Chien-Hong Huang said in his interview, is to be the most important resource pool of international curatorial talents in Taiwan. Therefore, figuring out how to increase matches between talents and domestic or foreign institutions, in addition to the funding, can be a direction to work towards. Under a feasible framework, perhaps integrating the international connections and resources of the NCAF's ARTWAVE platform is a more achievable short-term goal.

Also, the scope of the curatorial sector does not stop at curatorial talent cultivation. When the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts oversaw the NCAF's International Curatorial Network of Visual Art, it sent researchers, arts administrators, and exhibition production professionals to Bangladesh's arts database, the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai, and the Biennale of Sydney for internships and practical work experience. In 2019, when the author met with the Sharjah Art Foundation, which organizes the Sharjah Biennial, representatives of the foundation said that Taiwan should send more graduate students or freshly graduated curators/artists to participate in the foundation's seminars and workshops.

In other words, the problems regarding the current design of the two NCAF programs are twofold: On the one hand, due to budget constraints and Taiwan's domestic conditions, they cannot concentrate massive amounts of resources on a few artists and curators to help them hold exhibitions at first-class venues in North America and Europe, as some Asian countries do. On the other hand, they ignore the training of novice curators and workers engaged in exhibition production. Addressing the former issue, to support workers or teams at the so-called top of the hierarchy might be more difficult given Taiwan's current ecosystem (even though it is common in Taiwan's performing arts scene, as Fong-Ray Hsu noted). Nonetheless, investing in and supporting the essential workers of Taiwan's curatorial sector might be a way for NCAF to establish a foundation outside of the two programs' framework and make the development of Taiwan's curatorial field more comprehensive.

Notes 

1: Interview conducted in Shilin on March 25, 2021.
2: Interview conducted in Taipei City on April 5, 2021.
3: The interview was conducted in Neihu on April 9, 2021.
4: The interview was conducted in Neihu on April 9, 2021.
5: Interview conducted in Taipei City on Friday, April 2, 2021.
6: Interview conducted in Taipei City on Friday, April 2, 2021.
7: The interview was conducted in Chiayi City on April 22, 2021.
8: ARTouch, October 25, 2019., https://artouch.com/views/content-11788.html

[Attachment 1] Interviewees Table