TNUA President Prof. Chen Kai-Huang started his second term as the university’s president on August 1, 2021.
He received his letter of appointment from Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung at a ceremony on July 30 for extending his presidency at TNUA, which he first assumed in August 2017.
Chen holds a master’s degree in Plastic Art from the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts (ENSBA). He is known for his mixed-media plastic art, installation art, conceptual art, and contemporary art theory and thinking. He joined TNUA’s faculty in 1992, and has since headed the Department of Fine Arts, the Graduate Institute of Trans-disciplinary Arts, the School of Fine Arts, and the Office of Student Affairs.
Prof. Chen, who has shown long-term interest in the changing cultural subjectivity and in art’s social participation in his study of politico-historical issues about identity, is a foremost advocate of a Taiwanese aesthetic.
As TNUA marks its 35th anniversary, Prof. Chen will lead the university towards its goals: reorienting the higher arts education; introducing friendly management of the campus; enlisting the help of alumni; building a platform for expanding resources; running an advanced education system for art professionals; and turning TNUA into a world-class arts institution.
Prof. Chen celebrates “freedom” and “difference” as the irreplaceable core value of art.
He hopes to continue to deepen the connections and interactions of different fields in order to maintain an “open discourse,” allowing the campus to become truly a place to practice the ideal of art and aesthetic courage.