One of the elder statesmen of Taiwanese painting, Kuo Tong-jong founded the Fifth Moon Group back in 1956.The group was highly influential in introducing avant-garde genres to Taiwan. (photo by Chuang Kung-ju)

In 1947, when American iconoclast Jackson Pollock (1921-1956) put aside his brush to paint with unconventional objects, the art world would never be the same. Pollock's abstractionism lighted the pathway to movements as varied as Abstract Expressionism, Neo-Dadaism, Pop Art, Optical Art, Neo-Realism, Surrealism, and even Neo-Expressionism and Postmodernism, all of which emerged in his wake within a short span of years.