Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts Introduction
Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (referred to as KMFA) was established in 1994 and is located in the Neiweipi Cultural Park in the northwest metropolitan area of Kaohsiung City, within the former wetlands of "Neiweipi". The northern region, featuring Guishan and Banping Mountains and the north-south oriented Shoushan on the west side, converges with the Love River that flows through the area, collectively creating a picturesque landscape surrounded by mountains and water. In 2017, the museum transitioned into an administrative legal entity under the Kaohsiung City Professional Cultural Institution, continuing to deepen local culture by collecting works from Taiwanese artists. Each year, the museum supports emerging artists through the "Kaohsiung Award" and "KS Kaohsiung Experimental Field" calls for submissions and organizes thematic exhibitions and artist research shows. It also actively collaborates with world-class museums to introduce a variety of large-scale international exhibitions, providing the public with a broader and more diverse selection of contemporary art exhibitions. In recent years, KMFA has also developed online interactive resources, such as 360-degree virtual exhibitions, online guided tours, an online art database (including visual image databases, a database of contemporary memory projects from Austronesia, and readings from the "Silent Reading Collection"), and a YouTube channel, all updated irregularly during exhibitions. This makes the museum not only a place for cultural and artistic visits but also a platform for knowledge sharing. The main building of KMFA consists of four floors above ground and two underground. The first floor features international special exhibitions and high-ceiling contemporary art galleries, the second floor focuses on thematic exhibitions or artist research shows, the third floor houses the Southern Taiwan Diversity History Special Collection Room, and the fourth floor serves as a contemporary experimental creative exhibition space. The underground level includes a lecture hall with 352 seats, a resource classroom for group art education, and an art research room with over 46,000 art books and materials available for public reading and research. In 2005, KMFA transformed the "Visitor Service Center" located on the west side of the park into a Children's Museum of Art, the first public museum in the country specifically dedicated to children. Comprising a three-story main building and an outdoor scenic garden, it is an ecological landscape space that integrates culture, art, education, leisure, and play. Unlike traditional school-based art and humanities education, the Children's Museum of Art combines museum education with children's art education, integrating interactive displays and arts education promotion activities. Through thematic planning, it provides rich, interesting, and engaging educational display designs that allow children to learn through games, creation, exploration, observation, experience, and imagination. In recent years, the Children's Museum of Art has combined the ecological landscape of Neiweipi Cultural Park and the resources of KMFA, focusing on promoting children's art education by integrating community and school resources and striving towards goals of "ecology, environmental protection, culture, and art." Surrounded by greenery, the sand pit is a playground for parents and children to enjoy together. The museum park, covering 43 hectares, features over 40 art sculptures and public art distributed between the park's lakeside, trees, and meadows, showcasing a diverse visual effect and extending the natural environment into an integral part of the museum's exhibition and education. The various visiting mechanisms of the museum, the establishment of the KMFA Bookstore, the presence of quality restaurants, and the recent development of ecological guide courses, creative markets, and numerous outdoor activities are all centered on creating the experience of an "art ecological lifestyle circle in the museum," realizing the goal of the museum as a platform for artistic living and aesthetic experience. The museum park encompasses the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, the Children's Museum of Art, and the Neiweipi Art Center, three cultural buildings that combine ecology, art, and leisure into a cultural hub, where, amidst the singing of insects and birds and the shimmering waves, art takes root, grows, and thrives under the bright sun of southern Taiwan.
