Like all sincere art, Suan's photos ask questions. What does it mean to live in an artificial environment or a simulated environment? What does it mean when your environment is derived conceptually from something either far away or that no longer exists? And the interesting thing about these questions is that they apply just as well to the penguins of Taipei as they do to the citizens of Taipei. So perhaps it is little wonder that Zoo Part 2 was more than half sold out by its second day.
TIVAC is at 29 Liaoning St., Lane 45, No. 29, 1F (遼寧街45巷29號1樓).
Zines with a reason
In Taipei there isn't any real venue for outsider art, or art that is both untrained and operates outside the institutions of galleries and museums. So it pops up here and there, usually in restaurants and cafes. A noteworthy show up now is Floaty, a group of expressive line illustrations and drawings by American Keith Saunders.
Saunders began drawing Floaty in 1995, photocopying his collections and binding them into small books or zines. Subsequently, he's used these artist books as goodwill gestures while traveling, and in recent years he's sold them at modest prices (NT$150 per book in the current show), devoting all the profits to a friend, Cory Howard, who is fighting breast cancer.
The drawings ride the edge between playful and demented and make fun with the archetypes of the contemporary world: there are office workers stabbing themselves with pencils, smiling girls dancing, devils with pitchforks and fat girls at the beach. The two volumes on sale now were both produced while Saunders was living in Taiwan and contain subjects pulled from local inspiration. They're also for a very good cause.
You can see Floaty at Norwegian Wood (挪威森林咖啡館) on Roosevelt Rd., Sec. 3, Lane 284, No. 9 (羅斯福路3段284弄9號) until Aug. 6. You can also see Saunder's work on a larger scale in the new wall and ceiling murals that he's in the process of painting at Underworld (
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