Embroidery, knitting, weaving and painting are among the variety of media Lo Tsen (洛貞) uses in her series of installations called Gradual Rebirth (冉冉 再生). The works found in the solo show are abstract ideas about the relationship between the artist’s concern for environmental issues and her ongoing quest for her creative voice.
■ Angel Art Gallery (天使美術館), 41, Xinyi Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市信義路三段41號). Open daily from 10am to 9pm.
Tel: (02) 2701-5229
■ Until Dec. 20
The motifs and themes found in Japonism, a style of 19th century Japanese art that influenced European artists during the same period, is considered and expanded on by Japanese painter Toru Otsuki in his solo show The Floating World of Fetishism (戀物花漾浮世繪). Otsuki’s visual style, reminiscent of Gustav Klimt, shows attractive young women who appear as symbols of beauty and desire. The two-dimensional figures share space with elements drawn from nature such as flowers and birds, which also become design elements on the clothes worn by the women. Otsuki updates the tradition with the addition of manga and anime forms and figures.
■ Ever Harvest Art Gallery, 2F, 107, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段107號2樓). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6:30pm. Tel: (02) 2752-2353
■ Until Dec. 31
Chung Chiun-hsiung (鐘俊雄) seeks to express his inner world at a solo exhibit of his work at Fun Year Art Gallery. Chung’s acrylic and multi-media paintings of built-up pigment follow in the style of abstraction.
■ Fun Year Art Gallery (凡亞藝術空間), B1, 16, Ln 301, Henan St, Sec 2, Taichung City (台中市河南路二段301巷16號B1). Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 2pm to 6pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 10:30am to 6pm. Tel: (04) 2703-2424
■ Until Dec. 20
Destiny Curve (軌跡大化) is a father and son joint exhibition by Yung Yu-yu (楊英風) and Arthur Yung (楊奉琛). Yung Yu-yu’s bronze sculptures are geometrically abstract creations that evoke nature’s many shapes — whether undulating waves or triangular mountains. Arthur Yung’s digital images of setting suns and outer space evoke a timeless beauty beyond the mundane.
■ Modern Art Gallery, B1, 9, Ln 155, Kungyi Rd, Taichung City
(台中市公益路155巷9號).
Call (04) 2305-1217 for viewing
■ Until Jan. 12
Deloks (回陽人) is an exhibit by contemporary artist and filmmaker Lin Tay-jou (林泰州). The title refers to the Tibetan Buddhist concept of a person returning to life after death. The show features five short films created by Lin between 2005 and 2009 that interweave reality and fiction, narration of facts and strong visuals. The films incorporate myths, fables and real-life interviews to explore death and the tragic nature of human existence.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA), 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) 2552-3720
■ Until Jan. 17
Painter Lee Kuen-lin (李昆霖) continues his examination of isolation and loneliness at his solo exhibit at Lee Gallery. Painted in stark colors and simple shapes — a single tree on a mountaintop or a face peering through a desolate forest — Lee’s images conjure up a world where everyone has to individually examine their own mortality and their tenuous ties to others.
■ Lee Gallery (黎畫廊), 10, Ln 175, Da-an Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市大安路一段175巷10號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm. Tel: (02) 2325-6688
■ Until Dec. 27
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless