YAGEO Foundation
Creative Direction Brief for JRV / CI Development
nstitutional Identity & Strategic Foundation · April 2026
Private and Confidential
Purpose & Context
The YAGEO Foundation's corporate identity is under development with JRV, with delivery expected mid-June 2026. The Foundation's first major press engagements — for the flagship exhibition Heaven and Earth (國際名作展：Heaven and Earth) at the SANAA-designed Taichung Green Museumbrary — go out in the first week of June, before the full CI system lands.
This brief provides the strategic and directional guardrails JRV needs to ensure that the CI is grounded in the Foundation's institutional identity, and that any interim materials produced before full CI delivery are directionally coherent with the system that follows.

Scope: This brief governs the Foundation's institutional identity — not any single exhibition, project, or program. The CI system must serve the Foundation across all current and future activities.
What This Document Is
Strategic direction, identity parameters, audience intelligence, peer benchmarking, and visual territory. The what and why of the Foundation's identity.
What This Document Is Not
A design specification, a brand book, or a campaign brief. JRV receives territory and constraints. They produce the map.
Current CI Status
Ground zero. No existing logo, letterhead, brand guidelines, website, or visual identity system exists. This is a full build.
Institutional Overview
The YAGEO Foundation is a non-profit organization (NPO) based in Taiwan, founded by Pierre Chen (陳泰銘), chairman of the YAGEO Group. While the Foundation's origin is linked to YAGEO Group, its institutional identity, mission, and operations are independent.

The Foundation is not a corporate CSR arm, a marketing vehicle, or a brand extension. It is a cultural institution with its own mandate — a seven-person bilingual team (English and Traditional Chinese), internationally oriented, headquartered in Taipei.
600+
Works currently held across the collection
230+
Artists spanning six centuries of production
6
Active programs served by the CI system
3 Decades
Of sustained cross-cultural collecting practice
The Collection
The Foundation stewards a collection spanning six centuries of artistic production across multiple cultural traditions and media — not organized by a single thesis or medium, but reflecting a sustained, multi-decade practice of cross-cultural discernment.
Painting — ~260 works
Klimt (6), Picasso (23), Schiele (13), Richter (14), Doig (6), Bacon, Twombly (4), Warhol (5), Basquiat, Miró (10), Dalí (9), Cano (46 encaustic), Murgatroyd (8), Kettner (4)
Photography — ~114 works
Gursky (10), Struth (12), Ruff (9), Sugimoto (4), Huynh (20), Chin-San Long (4)
Sculpture — ~104 works
Moore (6), Maillol (7), Bourgeois (5), Cattelan (13), Gormley, Chillida (4), Ray (4), Lalanne (5), Riva (4)
Works on Paper — ~55 works
Sanyu watercolors, Cai Guo-Qiang gunpowder works, Picasso prints and drawings
Chinese Antiquities — ~62 works
Imperial porcelain (Yongzheng, Qianlong, Chenghua, Hongwu), jade including Mughal white jade, zitan furniture, Yuan dynasty handscrolls, Qianlong kesi tapestry, Persian silk rugs, silverware
Prints & Editions — ~16 works
Multiple artists across various printmaking traditions
Installation & Video — ~11 works
Time-based and immersive media works
Musical Instruments — 3 works
1714 Stradivarius violin, 1854 Pressenda cello, 1890 Lamy silver-mounted bow

The CI is the frame; the collection is the painting. The identity system must be a sympathetic visual environment for Klimt oils, Schiele drawings, Maillol bronzes, Gursky photographs, Qianlong porcelain, and Sanyu nudes — simultaneously.
Collecting Timeline
Three decades of sustained acquisition — from Sotheby's Taipei to Tate Modern loans — tracing the evolution from private collection to public cultural institution.
1
1992
First acquisitions at Sotheby's Taipei. Early focus on Taiwanese and Chinese modern masters: Sanyu, Zhu Yuanzhi, Chang Wan-Chuan, Pang Xunqin.
2
Late 1990s
Expansion into Western postwar and contemporary via Christie's and Sotheby's London and New York — Bacon, Twombly, Basquiat, Warhol. Deepening into Zao Wou-Ki (17 works).
3
Early 2000s
Photography program established — Gursky, Struth, Ruff, Sugimoto. Chinese antiquities deepened. Major sculpture acquisitions including Henry Moore's Three Piece Reclining Figure: Draped (1975).
4
2003–2004
Peak acquisition period. Bacon's Three Studies for Portrait of Lucian Freud. Major imperial Chinese works including Yongle brushwasher, Hongwu yuhuchunping, Qianlong jade vessels.
5
2020s–Present
Active contemporary collecting continues — Cano (46 encaustic works), Murgatroyd, Kettner. Loans to Tate Modern (2023) and Fondation Louis Vuitton establish international lending credibility.
Works are held across Taiwan, Singapore (FAL Storage), Hong Kong (Henderson Logistics), France, and Japan — reflecting the collection's global operational footprint.
Six Active Programs
The CI must serve the Foundation across all of these — not just exhibitions. An exhibition invitation, a Factum Foundation partnership announcement, a Tech-Art Award poster, and a 陽明山 stakeholder presentation must all look like they come from the same institution.
Exhibition Programming
Flagship: Heaven and Earth (November 20, 2026, TCAM Green Museumbrary), co-organized with TCAM, curated by Philip Larratt-Smith. The Foundation's first major public exhibition under its own institutional identity.
Collection Loans
Active international lending to Tate Modern, Fondation Louis Vuitton, and Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. Each loan announcement is a credibility signal and the Foundation's primary mechanism for building international recognition.
Digital Preservation
Partnership with an outside Foundation for 3D scanning and archival modeling of three-dimensional works, enabling high-fidelity preservation and potential future replication.
Heritage Restoration
Restoration of a heritage building on a prominent University's campus. Foundation role: funding and potential future programming use. Project stage: early.
Placemaking — 陽明山
Adaptive reuse of former housing, Envisioned as a cultural arts cluster.
YAGEO Tech-Art Award
Restart of the Foundation's arts award program in collaboration with the Asian Cultural Council. Currently in initial planning phase.
Strategic Mandate
The Single Most Important Constraint on Everything JRV Produces: The Foundation is in active transition from "Pierre Chen's private collection" to "independent public-facing cultural institution with its own credibility." This is not aspirational framing. It is the governing strategic directive.
Every CI decision must pass three tests. If the answer to any of these is wrong, the design fails — regardless of aesthetic quality.
Test 1
Institutional Identity
Does this design choice reinforce the Foundation's institutional identity — or does it reinforce the collector-as-personality frame?
Test 2
Independence
Does this read as an independent cultural institution — or as a subsidiary / brand extension of a technology conglomerate?
Test 3
Peer Recognition
Would a museum professional in Basel, London, New York, or Tokyo register this as a serious institutional peer?
Core Narrative
This is the Foundation's overarching institutional story — not a tagline, not a mission statement, not an exhibition description. This is the paragraph by which JRV's creative team should read and understand what this institution is, what it stands for, and where it is going.
The YAGEO Foundation, Taiwan, is a cultural institution built on three decades of cross-cultural collecting — a practice guided by discernment, sustained by patience, and animated by a conviction that great art transcends the boundaries of geography, period, and medium. From 14th-century Chinese handscrolls to living contemporary artists, from Viennese Secessionism to postwar Asian modernism, from gelatin silver photography to imperial porcelain, the Foundation's collection embodies a singular dialogue between Eastern and Western artistic traditions. Through exhibitions, international loans, digital preservation, heritage restoration, placemaking, publication, and arts awards, the Foundation now makes this collection and its cultural mission accessible — as a public resource for Taiwan and for the world. It operates with the calm conviction that cultural institutions are built not in a season but across generations: steadily, with depth, integrity, and care.
Discernment
Guided by disciplined integration of instinct, research, and patience
Dialogue
A singular conversation between Eastern and Western artistic traditions
Accessibility
A public resource for Taiwan and for the world
Permanence
Built across generations — steadily, with depth, integrity, and care
Foundation-Level Key Messages
These are the claims the Foundation makes about itself as an institution — independent of any single exhibition, program, or the founder's personal narrative. They must hold true across every context.
1
Collection as Cultural Argument
The Foundation stewards one of Asia's most significant collections of modern and contemporary art — over 600 works spanning six centuries — not as accumulation, but as a sustained curatorial thesis about the dialogue between Eastern and Western artistic traditions.
CI Implication: The identity must communicate intellectual seriousness and curatorial depth. The CI must serve as a neutral, authoritative frame that does not privilege any single period, medium, or cultural tradition.
2
Public Access and Institutional Generosity
The Foundation exists to make this collection publicly accessible — through exhibitions, institutional loans, publications, and partnerships — as a cultural resource for Taiwan and the world.
CI Implication: The identity must signal openness and public mission. The CI should communicate welcome without populism, sophistication without exclusion.
3
Discernment as Practice
The Foundation's collecting is guided by discernment — the disciplined integration of instinct, research, and patience — applied across cultural domains with equal rigor: painting and sculpture, photography, antiquities, design, and music.
CI Implication: The CI should embody discernment itself — every element selected with intention, nothing superfluous. The "discipline of restraint" visual principle derives directly from this message.
4
Cultural Stewardship Beyond the Collection
The Foundation's mission extends beyond exhibition to encompass preservation, placemaking, education, and the support of artistic practice — from digital preservation to heritage restoration, adaptive reuse, and arts award programs.
CI Implication: The identity system must be versatile enough to serve all six active programs with coherence.
Grounding Messages & CI Principles
Taiwan as Cultural Position
Based in Taiwan, the Foundation operates at the intersection of East Asian cultural traditions and global contemporary practice — a position that gives it a distinctive curatorial perspective and a commitment to contributing to Taiwan's international cultural presence.
CI Implication: The identity must feel international but grounded. Not placeless globalism; not provincial localism. Bilingual parity between English and Traditional Chinese is the most direct visual expression of this message.
Long-Term Commitment
The Foundation is building for permanence — investing in institutional infrastructure, professional governance, and generational continuity to ensure that the collection and its cultural mission endure beyond any individual.
CI Implication: The identity should feel permanent — not trendy, not campaign-driven, not dependent on a founder's personal brand. It should look the same in ten years. This is the institutional character — storied, calm, composed, collected, steady — made visible.
Discipline of Restraint
Every CI element selected with intention. Nothing superfluous. The visual system earns authority through what it omits as much as what it includes.
Sympathetic Frame
The CI is the frame; the collection is the painting. The identity must recede gracefully before a Klimt oil and stand with equal authority beside a Qianlong porcelain vessel.
Institutional Permanence
The system must read as a serious institutional peer to the Tate, Fondation Louis Vuitton, and the great museums of Basel, London, New York, and Tokyo — today and in a generation's time.