「元气‧淋漓——人间90庄喆特展」展览导言

庄喆（1934-）出生于中国北京，其父亲为北京故宫博物院古物馆第一科科长庄严（1899-1980），来台后成为台北故宫博物院副院长，被誉为「文物的守护者」。1935年，庄严奉调故宫南分院，举家随即南下。1937年七七事变，举家随父亲押解故宫文物南迁，辗转到达贵州安顺。1944年，因战事所及故宫文物再次迁移至四川；1946年二战结束，故宫文物于1月运抵重庆，隔年抵返南京。1948年12月，因国共内战，故宫文物再次迁移，并于12月26抵台。庄喆随文物先抵基隆，隔年抵台中，并于1950年随故宫文物迁至台中雾峰北沟，长达15年。雾峰是庄喆在华人世界渡过最稳定且最久的地方，仿如他的故乡。

庄喆少年时期在不断搬迁岁月中度过，随父母守护文物之馀，途中的山川辉映、人物风采，亦一一注入庄喆的心灵。进入台湾师范大学美术系后，庄喆于1959年加入「五月画会」。他长于思辨，耐于枯寂，从文学、哲学、美术史的摸索当中不断潜行发展，意气风发，成为艺坛新锐。

庄喆的艺术蜕变酝酿于1960年代晚期到1970年代初期，其中最大的转折点为1966年夏天至1968年前往欧美考察艺术的一年期间，使得庄喆对于艺术的看法大为转变。他向往专业艺术家的探索之旅，最终决定赴美潜心创作。1973年开启隐居十四年的安娜堡市田园生活，1986年再次返回阔别已久的乡土，在国立艺术学院客座一年。这段时间，庄喆不断发表自己对于艺术的观点，成为他发表文章的第二次高峰时期，也是他对于初期艺术观点的实践与转化的成果。1987年，庄喆把工作室迁至哈德逊河畔，开展哈德逊河时期；1994年，又将画室迁移到纽约市，开启曼哈顿时期，并更加反省自身创作。千禧年后，他透过古代作品，创作出「柏岩变奏」系列、「十六罗汉」系列及「雪舟破墨山水变奏」系列，透过文征明、贯休、雪舟泯灭东西与古今的区隔，获得崭新面目。此后，庄喆的创作呈现独游太虚的苍茫感。他深刻思索，透过绘画追寻纷然表象底层的精神内涵，逐渐又回到早年心所向往宋代绘画精神的追求，从空灵的气象更加苍茫浑厚。中国审美精神强调内在心灵的厚度，庄喆的作品从空灵的洒脱进入到心灵深处的苍茫感，成为战后中国年轻一代画家追求现代抽象画中的代表画家。

庄喆幼年跟随护持故宫文物的父亲辗转神州南北，少年时期落脚台湾，直到1972年迁移美国。经历数十年的创作生涯，东西古今文明已容纳于胸臆；庄喆的创作意志始终如一，试图创造出属于融汇东西方美学的现代抽象绘画。

雾峰，是他于台湾逗留最久的地方，庄喆于此渡过高中、大学、出国访问前的岁月。此次归乡特展，乃是庄喆离乡五十馀年，初次在台湾中部举行大型特展。「元气・淋漓——人间90庄喆特展」，依照空间规划为6大展区，向观众呈现庄喆数十年来游历东西方的艺术创作成就。庄喆巧妙运用拼贴、书写，营造诗意视觉，造像系列凝视情感流露，于山水画中注入生命气息，各具风情，凸显其绘画深邃内涵。本次特展深入其艺术核心，呈现庄喆独特的视觉诗篇及他于创作当中探索文明与生命的历程。


CHUANG Che (1934-) was born in Peiping (now Beijing), China. His father, CHUANG Yan (1899-1980), was the Chief of the 1^st Section, Gallery of Antiquities, Palace Museum in Peiping, who became the Deputy Director of the National Palace Museum in Taipei after coming to Taiwan and was hailed as the Guardian of Artifacts. In 1935, upon reassigned to the Nanjing Branch of the Palace Museum, Chuang Yan relocated his family to south of China. In 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident broke out. The entire family followed Chuang Che’s father as he escorted the artifacts of the Palace Museum southward, winding up arriving at Anshun, Guizhou. In 1944, due to the impact of war, they moved the artifacts again to Sichuan. In 1946, after the World War II ended, the artifacts of the Palace Museum were transported to Chongqing in January and returned to Nanjing in the following year. In December 1948, owing to the Chinese Civil War, the artifacts of the Palace Museum were relocated yet again, arriving in Taiwan on December 26. Chuang Che arrived at Keelung first along with the artifacts, and to Taichung the following year. Then, in 1950, he moved to Beigou, Wufeng, Taichung, along with the artifacts of the Palace Museum, where he dwelled for 15 years. Wufeng was the place Chuang Che stayed the most stably and longest in the Chinese-speaking world, as if it were his hometown.

Chuang Che had been relocating throughout his youth. While he followed his parents in guarding the artifacts, the charms of landscapes, and the demeanors of individuals, encountered along the way all seeped into his mind. After enrolled in the Department of Fine Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, Chuang joined the Fifth Moon Art Group in 1959. Well-versed in dialectic thinking and patient in solitude, Chuang ceaselessly developed in low profile amidst his exploration of literature, philosophy, and art history, evolving exuberantly as an emerging star in the art scene.

Chuang Che’s artistic metamorphosis dawned in the late 1960s to the early 1970s, with the biggest pivotal point being the year he went to Europe and America for art study from the summer of 1966 to 1968, which hugely changed his perspective with art. Aspiring for an exploratory journey of professional artist, he made up his mind to go to the United States and devote himself in artistic creation. 1973 marked the beginning of his pastoral life in retreat at Ann Arbor for 14 years. In 1986, Chuang returned to his long-lost homeland, serving as a visiting professor at the National Institute of the Arts for one year. In the meantime, Chuang Che constantly published his views on art, marking the second peak of his writing career, as the result of the practice and conversion of his early artistic perspectives. In 1987, Chuang Che moved his studio to the riverside of the Hudson River, entering the “Hudson Period.” In 1994, he moved his studio again to New York City, unveiling the “Manhattan Period,” wherein he engaged in a deeper reflection on his art practice. After the millennium, inspired by ancient works, he produced the Rock & Cypress Variation series, the Sixteen Lohans series, and the Variation on Shesshu’s Broken Ink Landscape series. Through Wen Zhengming, Guanxiu, and Shesshu, he erased the lines between the East and the West, as well as the past and the present, giving birth to whole new outlooks. Since then, Chuang Che’s works exuded a sense of immensity of cosmos roaming in solitude. In a profound contemplation, the artist inquired into the spiritual essence beneath chaotic appearance. Gradually returning to the pursuit of the painting zeitgeist in the Song Dynasty he had aspired for in the early years, Chuang imbued ethereal phenomena with a more potent sense of immensity. The Chinese aesthetics stresses on the wealth of inner spirit. Chuang Che’s oeuvre evolved from ethereal detachment into immensity deep down the soul, elevating himself as an iconic painter among the post-war younger generation of Chinese artists in pursuit of modern abstract painting.

Following the footsteps of his father escorting the artifacts of the Palace Museum across the vast territory of China in his childhood, Chuang Che settled in Taiwan as a teenager, until moving to the U.S. in 1972. Through decades of artistic creation, he has imbibed civilizations from the past to date, in the East and the West. Chuang consistently stays true to his artistic volition, striving to produce the modern abstract painting with the Eastern and Western aesthetics fused as one.

Wufeng was the place Chuang Che dwelled the longest in Taiwan, where he spent his years of senior high school, university, and the time before traveling abroad. This special exhibition of homecoming is his first large-scale exhibition thrown in the central Taiwan after away from home for over 5 decades. “Vivacity‧Overflowing——Chuang Che at 90” is divided into 6 sections in line with the spatial layout. The exhibition showcases Chuang Che’s artistic achievements over decades of traveling the East and the West. Artfully leveraging collage and calligraphy, the artist renders poetic visuals. Chuang crystalizes outpouring emotions in his figurative series, and breathes life into the landscape series, for each to exhibit charms unique to their own and shed light on the profound essence of the artist’s painting. The special exhibition delves into the core of Chuang’s art, presenting his distinct visual poetry as well as his exploratory journey of civilizations and lives in artworks.