Artists from Taiwan, Germany, Japan, Sweden and Spain working in interactive installation, sound and video art will show off their work as part of the Fourth Digital Arts Festival. This year’s theme, “Funky Light” (光怪), probes the nature of technology and its effect on civilization. The festival, which takes place at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA, Taipei) and the Digital Arts Center (台北數位藝術中心), is accompanied by a series of performances and an artist forum.
■ Digital Arts Center (台北數位藝術中心), 180 Fuhua Rd, Taipei City (台北市福華路180號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Tel: (02) 7736-0708; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA, Taipei), 39 Changan W Rd, Taipei City (台北市長安西路39號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm.
Tel: (02) 2552-3721. On the Net: dac.tw/daf09
■ Begins Friday. Until Nov. 15
Taiwanese contemporary artist Chang Chih-Cheng (張志成) presents a new series of portraits and dream-inspired works in his solo exhibition Beyond Words (意外). Chang’s oil paintings of human figures on a featureless landscape are rendered in subdued hues that depict a lonely and desolate picture of human existence.
■ Chen Ling Hui Contemporary Space (陳綾蕙當代空間) 2, Alley 24, Ln 300, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段300巷25弄2號). Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 11am to 7pm.
Tel: (02) 2703-2277
■ Until Nov. 29
Norwegian ceramicist Ole Lislerud examines consumerism in Metaphorical Signs. Employing visual references to the marketplace and stock exchange, Lislerud’s series of ceramic tiles, porcelain panels and plaques employs markings, signs, calligraphy, photos and graffiti that are meant to symbolize the pressures of advertising and the assumption that the meaning of life is attained through the acquisition of cash and commodities.
■ Yingge Ceramics Museum (鶯歌陶瓷博物館), 200 Wenhua Rd, Yinge Township, Taipei County (台北縣鶯歌鎮文化路200號). Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 9:30am to 5pm, closes at 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Tel: (02) 8677-2727
■ Until Dec. 6
Taiwanese contemporary artist Chang Pei-chun (張培均) exposes his internal world in Inner Heart Memories (心象追憶). The series of abstract and expressionist oil paintings is a mixed bag of colorful shapes built up on the canvas, as though an array of disparate emotions and memories are competing for the viewer’s attention.
■ Dynasty Art Gallery (朝代藝術), 41 Leli Rd, Taipei City (台北市樂利路41號). For a viewing, call (02) 2377-0838
■ Until Nov. 17
Brushing aside realism as an artistic trope, Taiwanese artist Hung Yi-chen (洪藝真) offers an unconventional approach to painting in her solo exhibition at IT Park Gallery (伊通公園). Chen draws on the ideas of theorists such as Roland Barthes to focus the viewer’s attention on the process of creating a painting rather than the painting itself.
■ IT Park Gallery (伊通公園), 2F-3F, 41 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街41號2-3樓). Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 1pm to 10pm. Tel: (02) 2507-7243
■ Until Dec. 5
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
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would