Manifesto
Association of Taipei Contemporary Art Center, Taiwan
August 9, 2009
We are a group of local and international art professionals and intellectuals, who believe that, as an essential component of a flourishing democratic society, art needs freedom to reflect and respond to its time, by means of self-organization and its independent operation of a physical space, to raise a critical voice to the changes of society and culture.
I
This association is to ensure and preserve the independence of contemporary art from governmental policies and corporate influences.
This association is to raise a voice as an alternative to the official cultural policy and free market logic.
II
A democracy is based on the diversity of culture and opinions; accepting criticism, opposition and alternatives.
Contemporary art is criticism, opposition and alternative and thus a democratic government is to protect and support, instead of controlling, contemporary art’s criticality and its own space.
To ensure art’s independence and its criticality the art community needs to gather to reflect and examine social and cultural issues and tendencies.
As a group of critical individuals of the contemporary art field and intellectuals, we believe forming an association and creating a physical space is essential to the realization of these goals and principles.
This association’s art centre is a vital link between the general public, the government, the art community and intellectuals.
III
As an indispensible strategy to reshape power-relationships of knowledge production and cultural imagination, the association and its art-center shall establish itself as a mechanism of autonomous artistic production and the formation of public space.
As an integral part of society, the association and its art centre shall actively engage in the reorganization of the cultural fields and the constant re-definition of art.
As a self-empowerment organ, the association and its art center shall establish itself as a platform of critical discourses, an engine of critical mass, and a responsive and flexible institution supported and operated by art practitioners and intellectuals.
IV
Freedom for a responsible and critical art world!
