Li Tsai-chien Sculpture Repainting Incident
李再鈐雕塑改色事件
Source: Ah! Red
From: China Times, Ren Jian supplement
Date: August 29, 1985. Author: Lung Ying-tai
In 1985, sculptor Li Tsai-ch’ien’s work Minimal Infinity was exhibited at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Someone wrote in to suggest that the piece, painted red, looked somewhat like the red star of the Chinese Communist Party. Museum director Su Jui-p’ing promptly spent NT$8,000 to repaint the work silver — prompting protests from the sculptor himself. In her article “Ah! Red,” Lung Ying-tai wrote that she found this “extremely serious, because this ‘minor incident’ exposes two attitudes that no civilised society can tolerate: first, extreme contempt for art; and second, the ideology of politics in command — something found only in totalitarian regimes.” She also challenged whether the TFAM director who had arbitrarily altered the work was “a political commissar or an arts professional.”