Imagining Taiwan: The Role of Art in Taiwan’s Quest for Identity (Modern Asian Art and Visual Culture, 5)

Book info: Imagining Taiwan: The Role of Art in Taiwan’s Quest for Identity (Modern Asian Art and Visual Culture, 5) (Paperback, 370 pages) – Brill, 2025. Language: English.

Taiwan’s quest for identity and international recognition has been the most important and fiercely contested issue for nearly half century, both nationally and internationally. Imagining Taiwan is the first in-depth and comprehensive study, published in English, which critically explores the pivotal role played by the visual arts in Taiwan’s identity discourse. Drawing on 25 years of research, Sophie McIntyre analyses the ways in which identity narratives have been imagined, interpreted and transmitted, locally and globally, through the production, selection, display and reception of Taiwan art. This book focuses on the post-martial law era, a transformative period when democratisation gave rise to a heightened sense of Taiwanese consciousness, and a growing awareness of Taiwan’s place in the world. Artists, curators, art critics and scholars in Taiwan actively engaged in identity issues in unique, and often subversive ways. The author reveals how, with the turn of the new millennium, identity discourses in the visual arts shifted, from a Taiwan-centred narrative into a transnational vision embracing local, regional and global perspectives.Imagining Taiwan brings together primary and archival sources, and nearly 200 images, many published for the first time. It is an essential reference for specialists and students in art, curatorship, museums, and Taiwan and China studies, and it will also appeal to those seeking a greater understanding of the wider region. Editorial Reviews Review This study cracks open wide a new perception of Taiwan and its artistic contribution to the public. [McIntyre] has capably documented and explained her original discovery of Taiwan’s international entrance to the world of art in a publication which measures 7”x 10”, weighs three pounds, consists of 300 pages with 200 well-chosen illustrations of art work, [..] enhanced by a fine writing style …

Richard Kagan in Critical Asian Studies February 15, 2019

Sophie McIntyre’s Imaging Taiwan: The Role of Art in Taiwan’s Quest for Identity (1987–2010) is a useful and authoritative source. […] good, solid, and comprehensive. [This book] effectively and wonderfully brings a ‘pragmatic’ imagination for us to reconsider the relationship between art and politics in contemporary art in Taiwan.

Hsin-tien Liao in International Journal of Taiwan Studies 2.2 ( Sept 2019) pp. 377-395 About the Author Sophie McIntyre is a scholar and curator of art from the Asia-Pacific, with expertise in art from Greater China. She received her Ph.D. from the Australian National University (2013) and has lectured and held fellowships in universities in Australia, Taiwan, China and Hong Kong. She has also curated more than 30 exhibitions, several of which featured art from Taiwan. Her texts have been widely published in books, journals, and catalogues in Australia and internationally.