HIGHLIGHT
Korean-born, New York City-based artist Lee Chang Jin will this weekend give a presentation about her current art project, Comfort Women Wanted, at Taipei Artist Village, where she is completing a residency. The title refers to advertisements that appeared in Asian newspapers during the 1930s that were used to entice women into serving as prostitutes for the Japanese army. When the ads failed to attract enough women from Korea, Taiwan, China and Malaysia, among other countries, the Japanese military employed more dubious means to round up “comfort” women for their soldiers.
The project’s audio and mixed media installation includes original interviews with extant comfort women and a Japanese soldier as well as prints that resemble the original advertisements.
■ Taipei Artist Village (台北國際藝術村), 7 Beiping E Rd, Taipei City (台北市北平東路7號)
■ Sunday from 3pm to 5pm. Admission is free
Taiwanese artist and 2009 Venice Biennale participant Yang Mao-lin (楊茂林) examines how global culture supplants local traditions in Temple of Sublime Beauty — Made in Taiwan (婆娑之廟─台灣製造). In his sculpture, Yang mixes the iconography of Taiwanese religious artifacts, such as Buddhist statues and Taoist alters, and characters from popular culture, including King Kong and Wonder Woman. The message: celebrities are the new idols worshipped by the masses.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA, Taipei), 39 Changan W Rd, Taipei City (台北市長安西路39號). Open Tuesdays through Sundays from 10am to 6pm.
Tel: (02) 2552-3721
■ Until Jan. 30
Calligrapher and ink painter Kwong Yue-pin (孔依平) spends his time traversing Taiwan’s mountains and rivers. Transforming the Heart in Ink: An Exhibition of the Calligraphy and Painting of Kwong Yue-Pin (散墨蛻懷—孔依平書畫展) displays 50 of Kwong’s works inspired by his travels.
■ National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館), 49 Nanhai Rd, Taipei City (台北市南海路49號). Open daily from 10am to 6pm. Closed on Mondays. Tel: (02) 2361-0270
■ Until Saturday
Taiwanese painter Lin Hong-yi’s (林弘毅) solo exhibition features landscape, nude, portrait and still life paintings. The artist follows the realist tradition in depicting everyday subjects.
■ Taipei Cultural Center (台北市社教館) B1, 25, Bade Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市八德路三段25號B1). Open daily from 9am to 5pm. Closed on Mondays. Tel: (02) 2577-5931
■ Until Oct. 1
Chinese sculptor and 2006 Zhengzhou International Sculpture Biennale gold-prize winner Ren Zhe (任哲) presents The Flourishing Age (盛世氣兮), a solo exhibit of bronze sculptures that depict warriors in heroic poses on horseback.
■ Ping Art Space (平藝術空間), 179, Anhe Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市安和路二段179號). Open Monday to Saturday from 1pm to 9pm.
Tel: (02) 2738-3317
■ From Saturday until Oct. 12
Chinese artist and photographer Li Xiaoke (李小可) takes a nostalgic look at China in his solo exhibition of ink paintings Soulful Homeland of Ink-Wash (水墨家園). Li’s landscapes portray scenes of misty mountains and urban vistas of Asian architecture.
■ Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (國父紀念館), 505, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段505號)
■ Until Sunday
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located