Museum collections are never based on market trends, but rather on whether a work can fill the gaps in art history. Taking the Taipei Fine Arts Museum as an example, its collection direction is clearly set to collect works by \"outstanding artists who have contributed to the development of Taiwanese art,\" and uses \"important artists in the context of Taiwan's contemporary art history\" as the collection orientation. In other words, when collection experts evaluate an artist, the real question is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIf he were absent, would there be an unclear gap in this segment of art history?<\/p>\n <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The modern ink movement in Taiwan during the 1960s was an important turning point in post-war art history. However, if collection researchers carefully sort through this history, they will discover a phenomenon: most creators at that time, under the ideology of \"pure form,\" deliberately concealed personal experiences, and their works tended toward the practice of abstract composition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zhao Zhan'ao is one of the few exceptions. Art historian Hsiao Ching-jui pointed out in a monograph that Zhao Zhan'ao's works \"have always exhibited strong traces of life and pulsation, revealing a sense of desolation and solitude.\" From the perspective of collections, this is extremely precious; he represents the \"thread that retains emotional life<\/strong>\" in the modern ink movement, and this thread is precisely undervalued and underrepresented in the narratives of existing public art museums; he is an artist who can fill the narrative gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n