2050 is a future point in time that has not yet arrived. Many projections of the future of humankind envision the changes and appearances of our lifeworld in the year 2050. These yet unarrived times and objects are not far from our present and combine the history we have once experienced with humankind’s goals and aspirations for an ideal future life, drawing a possible blueprint for the future. The exhibition “2050, A Brief History of the Future” aims to discuss the future world by looking at the development of human material civilization. The exhibition invites a total of more than fifty participating artists from Taiwan and abroad to adopt an angle of thinking about and probing the future from the point of view of contemporary works of art in exploring many of the social issues in today’s world. The works are rich and diverse, and filled with many thought-provoking and inspirational new creations.

This is the first international exchange exhibition to be co-organized by the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. The exhibition is curated by Pierre-Yves Desaive, and its name and concept are inspired by A Brief History of the Future, published by French economist Jacques Attali. In A Brief History of the Future, Attali speculates on the future development of human history and describes the future international situation and changes in daily life based on known history and scientific viewpoints. Taking this as the starting point, the curator began to explore important topics such as the over-exploitation of natural resources, over-consumption, social inequality and religious wars in a world changed by the development of technology. He also expanded this curatorial framework to exhibit content in Taiwan, re-examining in greater depth all kinds of economic activity, the history of civilization in the context of technological developments, as well as the allocation of power and composition of ideologies. The exhibition outlines the relationship and dialogue between Taiwan and the exhibition’s main theme by showcasing East-West exchange and development during the Tang Dynasty, geopolitical and imperial power in the Age of Exploration, economic and political changes in Asia after the Cold War, as well as the market economy and technological development in the current era of globalization.

​

The original version of this exhibition was presented separately at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, and the Louvre in Paris in 2016. For this exhibition in Taiwan, the curator has stayed true to the original curatorial context, exploring important issues of contemporary overexploitation of natural resources, overconsumption, social inequality and religious wars in a world changed by technological development. The exhibition extends and expands upon the above-mentioned framework to display in Taiwan a deep reexamination of various economic activities from the perspective of historical developments, as well as of the allocation of power, the history of civilizations in the context of technological development, and the composition of ideologies. Then, how humankind is facing a constantly evolving new future is looked at once again, as is the appearance of the world we have shaped.

Organized by the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles / Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België, Brussel, and the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts