Painting, as a social act, is a fundamental activity of human expression with a long and cross-cultural history. However, when we place “painting” within  parentheses as a genre of art, it is not a universally inherent concept but rather the community cultural identities formed through conventions and tools of knowledge production. As a way of categorizing visual knowledge, it is ambiguous and lacks clear boundaries, allowing for crossovers and parallel developments with other genres. As a general expressive concept, painting as a social act will never disappear or end. But as an art genre, “painting” has been delineated by a particular cultural identity system, during the development process from the European Renaissance to modernism in the West, redefined through various scientific discoveries and technological advancements, constructing a complete history of the development of the Western concept of “art.” From the prehistoric cave paintings of bison at Spain’s Altamira Cave to Picasso’s war horse of “Guernica” in the twentieth century. Although typically referring to the development of two-dimensional visual language, “painting” has undergone countless changes in media and form, not to mention its era differences in content and themes.

This Western cognitive system of “painting” gradually lost its historical stability in the modern era. Firstly, through exploration, colonization, and wars, along with intercultural exchanges, it was able to discern corresponding forms from non-Western cultures. Secondly, in the mid-20th century, conceptualism, a revolution from outside the system, thoroughly questioned the formal aesthetics of modernist “painting,” no longer just about the coordination between pigment and shape, or being satisfied with what the visual receives, but about trying to decouple from the aesthetic associations reflected in the creator’s retina. At this point, “painting” no longer refers only to the well-established types of graphic arts and its established forms of development, which are full of formal variations and modal dialectics; it came to an abrupt end at the peak of the formal creations made by Impressionism and Cubism until the mid-20th century, including its unparalleled “originality” and eloquent style. Has modernism completely failed? In 1964, Arthur Danto’s theory of “The End of Art” emphasized the collapse of grand narratives in history and introduced the concept of “Institutional Theory.” Hans Belting responded with “The End of the History of Art?” (1987), which led to the juxtaposition of elegance and vulgarity, Western and non-Western art, and worked with other non-history humanities disciplines to develop a new art history. This story, which is sorrowful for painters, can be summarized as such: conceptual art brought about the dematerialization of the art object, and postmodernism launched a comprehensive challenge to grand theories and ideologies. The former not only dissolved the core value of painting and sculpture as artwork but also pointed to the comprehensive media (generic art) practices other than painting and sculpture, which are connected to mechanisms like art critics, curators, and collectors nowadays. Painters lost their sacred position, and artists were downgraded as the customers and suppliers of fuels of ideology machines, leading to a dead-end in historical logic and reasoning. These changes gave rise to a discourse in the 1980s declaring that “painting is dead!” Historical reflection and the deconstruction of concepts became widespread, with “art history” and the historical narrative of all predetermined progressivism facing meta-analysis and reflexive examination. As a result, genuine painters became insecure, revealing a deep uncertainty in the trajectory of artistic development , with a deep fear of their artistic production being marginalized and separated from the trajectory of this era.

However, in the real-world art scene, artists were not necessarily willing to accept this dead end , and the art market was even less inclined to support art that lacked historical significance and consumer backing. In contrast, artists and the mechanism found ways to choose and find alternative outlets for painting. The “John Moores Painting Prize” in Liverpool, United Kingdom, which has long invested in rewarding painting, became the most iconic prize and platform for avant-garde British painting in the early 1960s, having witnessed the phenomenon of this era. Due to the pervasive rise of new media and conceptual art trends in the 1970s, this prize, which firmly adhered to the development of painting, faced unprecedented criticism and lost its unique influence in the art world. Yet when the prize was willing to confront the era’s call for paradigm shifts and proactively stuck its role in promoting the development of “painting,” it decided to reorganize resources and start afresh. Its call for submissions reflected boundary flexibility to define “painting” in the face of changes in the contemporary art world. The basic requirements for submissions included: the work must be suitable for wall hanging, with the entire work or part of it completed with painting materials, and allowing the work to protrude within a 0.5-meter space under certain width and height restrictions. These requirements clearly acknowledged the painting’s multi-medium and cross-genre characteristics. The Prize encourages young artists to create “new paintings” in the UK and preserves both a tolerant adherence to the genre of painting and the honor of the award’s tradition, influencing the establishment of a Tate Gallery branch in Liverpool in 1988 and making the prize as one of four key projects at Liverpool Biennial since 1991.

 

From a historical perspective, in 2007, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in the United States selected a batch of works from their collection created after 1965, pushing the boundaries of traditional painting and attempting to embrace and reimagine the possibilities of what constitutes a ‘painting’ ,” while also critically engaging with its limits, acknowledging the ongoing debates about the painting practice and its role in contemporary art. Among this discourse, Lynda Benglis, who considered herself a painter, described her 1974 work “Victor,” which had a sculptural quality on the wall, in a statement during an interview: “Painting is about the surface, and to me, the surface is what can eventually attract the viewer to touch the form.” This statement not only expressed her heartfelt pursuit of painting but also highlighted her attempt to redefine the traditional painting framework.

According to Hegel, an “end of history” era, does not refer to the end of humanity but rather to the entry of a historical form into an era of stagnation, lacking rich variation and intense revolution. Danto’s theory “The End of Art” is actually a deduction within the Western “painting” framework, lacking the perspective of non-Western worlds. Since we all know that history is full of biases and subjective opinions now. From a broader perspective, history is much more complex and nuanced than we perceive. Thus, in this era characterized by the absence of progressive “-isms,” painting is able to steadily continue and unfold its diverse manifestations within its multiple evolving systems, blooming, and reaching an era of ultimate diversity. From the dialectic of “is” and “is not” to the inclusive compatibility of “all are,” various forms of “painting” coexist, interwoven across time, regions, and cultures, creating a magnificent garden for “contemporary painting.” In other words, by adding “contemporary” to “painting,” it steps into the path of historical re-narration and self-reflection. In this era, it is not only a reconsideration of what painting can or should be conceptually, but also an exploration of the medium and form of painting itself, engaging in dialogue with contemporary content and issues, such as the influence of video, internet and media. The intellectual challenges posed by Conceptual Art, particularly since Duchamp’s bridging of Surrealism, Pop Art, Process Art, Body Art, and other integrated media systems, have effectively excluded modern painting and sculpture. This very context has undeniably provoked critical reflection within the “painting” system itself. Thus, “contemporaneity” lies in confronting historical reflection and revisiting established critical foundations to question and review the definition of painting. However, this process of “revisiting” is no easy feat—it requires making “definitive statements” amidst complexity and the miscellaneous and capturing “attention with compelling insight” in a space where anything and everything seems possible.

In Taiwan, whether the government or private institutions establish art awards that emphasize the categorization of art types, such as local exhibitions or awards for traditional painting, or the “Taipei Art Awards” which rewards cross-media or non-categorized contemporary art, we can observe that painting is almost at the periphery of contemporary art discourse. However, as mentioned above, over half a century of conceptual art development, regardless of whether its intent is to address the possibility of the paradigm shift in painting’s technical or historical dimensions, artists engaged in painting or contemporary art cannot avoid confronting these issues . Therefore, a “Contemporary Painting Prize” that emphasizes reflexivity and a fresh start is an essential art resource and milestone for Taiwan in this era.

The inaugural “CTBC Painting Prize” received an impressive total of 790 submissions, highlighting the significant number of painting practitioners in Taiwan and affirming painting as one of the most prevalent mediums in artistic expression. While the majority of the submissions do not exhibit obvious differences in style compared to those typically seen in local art exhibitions, the judging criteria focused not on traditional aesthetic criteria but rather on the exploration of contemporary issues within various creative approaches involved. This focus reflects the distinctive spirit that this prize seeks to champion. There are several phenomena worthy of attention. First, a considerable number of works address the relationship between traditional painting and new mediums of images. Whether it is self-media, the internet, rapidly disseminated images, or visual symbols in mass media, they have had a tremendous impact on painting. Artists no longer simply “naked-eye” observe nature but instead reinterpret the world through the mediation of media. Second, there is an exploration and supplementation of the form of the painting medium itself, where the work is neither sculpture nor painting, yet combines both characteristics, breaking the frame of two-dimensional painting and re-examining the existing relationship between discourse and context among various art media. Third, there is a meta-reflection on the history of painting, with creators acting as imagery curators who, create contemporary significance through reorganization, recompilation, and reference of the system establishment. From satire to sincerity, from figuration to abstraction, from global to local, from historical ghosts to contemporary metaphors, from the possibilities to its limitations between Eastern and Western paintings, the first “CTBC Painting Prize” in Taiwan marks the beginning of rewarding the exploration of the essence of painting and its contemporary transformation.