Great Migrations: Lu Ming-Te

2021/04/17 - 2021/09/19

“Migrations” are large-scale, long-distance movements to a new living space by either animals or people. This retrospective exhibition taps into this concept to explore three different dimensions: the artist’s own creative journey, observations on the evolution of art through time, and the relationship between humans and nature.

Great Migrations looks back on a career spanning over half a century, drawing on the curatorial and scholarly assistance of a consultative team of Tsong Pu, Hsu Yuan-Ta, Chiang Po-Shin and Cheng Nai-Ming. Lu Ming-Te’s early work began with “the pursuit of a purely painterly vocabulary,” until 1981, when he undertook graduate studies in the plastic arts at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. There, he discovered contemporary art’s potential for a multitude of expressive forms and media and developed an artistic framework of “mixed media art theory.” From the 1980s to the present day, Lu Ming-Te’s art has always cloven close to the societal issues of each era, while engaging in cross-disciplinary collaborations, even experimentations that cross the boundaries of species, space and time. Interweaving such diverse media as two-dimensional painting, video installation, sculpture, spatial installation, readymades, bodily performance and theater, Lu has even pursued dialogue with ecologists, geologists and scientists of other fields. The spaces of this exhibition will be organized according to a theatrical format, joining eight galleries together with a storylike text of the Great Migrations to endow works from eras past with a new viewing context. The progressive evolution of various forms of creative media will imbue the exhibition with the free dimensionality and temporal meaning of “the media is everything.”

Great Migrations: Lu Ming-Te
Press│Great Migrations: Lu Ming-Te

Artist

Lu Ming-Te

Lu Ming-Te was born in 1950 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Graduated from National Taiwan Normal University(NTNU), Department of Fine Arts and National Tsukuba University, Master’s Program in Plastic Art and Mixed Media. After returning to Taiwan, he taught successively at Tunghai University, NTNU and National Kaohsiung Normal University(NKNU). He worked as the Dean of the College of Arts, NKNU in 2003, established the Graduate Institute of Interdisciplinary Art, NKNU in 2006 and served as its Chair. He retired from NKNU in 2016.

Lu’s early work began with “the pursuit of a purely painterly vocabulary,” until 1981, when he undertook graduate studies in the plastic arts at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. There, he discovered contemporary art’s potential for a multitude of expressive forms and media and developed an artistic framework of “mixed media art theory.” From the 1980s to the present day, artist’s art has always cloven close to the societal issues of each era, while engaging in cross-disciplinary collaborations, even experimentations that cross the boundaries of species, space and time. Interweaving such diverse media as two-dimensional painting, video installation, sculpture, spatial installation, readymades, bodily performance and theater, Lu has even pursued dialogue with ecologists, geologists and scientists of other fields.