The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium organizes in Taiwan, in collaboration with the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung a large exhibition entitled '2050. A Brief History of the Future.'

National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan
24 March 2018 - 3 June 2018 

Phil Akashi and Jenny Holzer 

This is the third stage of an exhibition that was first set up in Brussels (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium) and Paris in 2015 (Louvre Museum, in collaboration with Palais de Tokyo), then in Milano in 2016 (Palazzo Grassi). Based on the successful essay by famous French economist and thinker Jacques Attali 'A Brief History of the Future', it gathered works by Hiroshi Sugimoto, Andy Wharol, David LaChapelle, Andreas Gursky, AES+F, Alighiero Boetti, Mona Hatoum, and many others. The aim of the exhibition was to demonstrate how contemporary art deals with critical issues such as economics, ecology, social inequalities, …Can art help us understand today’s world challenges? What will the world look like in 2050 if nothing changes?

The new stage of '2050. A Brief History of the Future' will broaden the scope of the first exhibition, by including Mr. Attali’s theory of the heart cities, that demonstrates how several economical centers shaped the world as we know it, from the middle ages until the 20th century. As the show will take place in Taiwan, it will focus on the exchanges between the East and the West, including artists coming from all over the world such as Ai Weiwei, Phil Akashi, Fung Ming Chip, Jenny Holzer, On Kawara.

2050 is a future point in time that has not yet arrived. Many projections of the future of humankind envision the changes and appearances of our lifeworld in the year 2050. These yet unarrived times and objects are not far from our present and combine the history we have once experienced with humankind's goals and aspirations for an ideal future life, drawing a possible blueprint for the future. The exhibition "2050, A Brief History of the Future" aims to discuss the future world by looking at the development of human material civilization.

The exhibition invites a total of more than fifty participating artists from Taiwan and abroad to adopt an angle of thinking about and probing the future from the point of view of contemporary works of art in exploring many of the social issues in today's world. The works are rich and diverse, and filled with many thought-provoking and inspirational new creations. This is the first international exchange exhibition to be co-organized by the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.

The exhibition is curated by Pierre-Yves Desaive, and its name and concept are inspired by A Brief History of the Future, published by French economist Jacques Attali. In A Brief History of the Future, Attali speculates on the future development of human history and describes the future international situation and changes in daily life based on known history and scientific viewpoints. Taking this as the starting point, the curator began to explore important topics such as the over-exploitation of natural resources, over-consumption, social inequality and religious wars in a world changed by the development of technology. He also expanded this curatorial framework to exhibit content in Taiwan, re-examining in greater depth all kinds of economic activity, the history of civilization in the context of technological developments, as well as the allocation of power and composition of ideologies. The exhibition outlines the relationship and dialogue between Taiwan and the exhibition's main theme by showcasing East-West exchange and development during the Tang Dynasty, geopolitical and imperial power in the Age of Exploration, economic and political changes in Asia after the Cold War, as well as the market economy and technological development in the current era of globalization.

The original version of this exhibition was presented separately at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, and the Louvre in Paris in 2016. For this exhibition in Taiwan, the curator has stayed true to the original curatorial context, exploring important issues of contemporary overexploitation of natural resources, overconsumption, social inequality and religious wars in a world changed by technological development. The exhibition extends and expands upon the above-mentioned framework to display in Taiwan a deep reexamination of various economic activities from the perspective of historical developments, as well as of the allocation of power, the history of civilizations in the context of technological development, and the composition of ideologies. Then, how humankind is facing a constantly evolving new future is looked at once again, as is the appearance of the world we have shaped.

Curator
Pierre-Yves Desaive
 
Artists
Ai WEIWEI
Phil AKASHI
Ludolf BAKHUIZEN
Thomas BAYRLE
Hans OP DE BEECK
CHANG Hsia-Fei
CHEN Ching-Yuan
CHOE U-Ram
Al FARROW
FUNG Ming Chip
Gregory GREEN
HeHe
Jenny HOLZER
HUANG Po-Chih, HSU Yueh-Chen, Archite: COOP, and Fong Cafe
HUANG Zan-Lun
Tetsuya ISHIDA
Andrew JUNGE
On KAWARA
Olga KISSELEVA
Aaron KOBLIN & Takashi KAWASHIMA
KUO I-Chen
MOON Kyungwon & JEON Joonho
Robert LONGO
LO Yi-Chun
Gonçalo MABUNDA
Eva & Franco MATTES
MEI Dean-E
Robert MORRIS
Mark NAPIER
Roman OPALKA
Adrian PACI
Sara RAHBAR
Gustavo ROMANO
Andres SERRANO
Wolfgang STAEHLE
Stelarc
Mark TITCHNER
Gavin TURK
Charwei TSAI & Tsering Tashi GYALTHANG
Eric VAN HOVE
Maarten VANDEN EYNDE
WANG Chien-Yang
Benjamin WOLFF
XU Zhen
XU Qu
YANG Mao-Lin
YANG Yongliang
C.J. YEH
YU Cheng-Ta
YUAN Goang-Ming

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium   http://www.fine-arts-museum.be

The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts   http://english.ntmofa.gov.tw/English/ 
The Louvre Museum   http://www.louvre.fr/en 
The Palais de Tokyo   http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/ 
The Palazzo Grassi   http://www.palazzograssi.it/

PHIL AKASHI - Moscow (detail)
Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Cotton Rag with Chinese characters: 囍/"Double Happiness", Hong Kong 2015.  77,5*115cm (ED5+1AP)

AI WEI WEI - Tea cube

Aaron Koblin & Takashi Kawashima - Ten Thousand cents 

Huang poh-Chi