Japanese sculptor Hiroto Kitagawa examines the psychology of Japan’s urban youth in Post New Type: Super Terracotta Sculptures, a solo exhibition of more than 30 works. Having spent 14 years studying and working in Italy, where he was influenced by Italian masters such as Alberto Giacometti and Marino Marini, Kitagawa brings a unique perspective to his subject matter and acts as a filter of the social preoccupations of his homeland. Issues such as socially withdrawn children and bullying work thematically into the drooping and languid sculptures made of acrylic paint on terracotta. Along with these anxious creatures, Kitagawa also examines a “new type” of youth whose penetrating expressions and confident postures suggest an alternative to the frail youth depicted in the popular media. Kitagawa’s sculptures are a complex blend of Eastern and Western aesthetic elements combined with a desire to express the essence of the sometimes emotionally distant and other times self-assured youth of contemporary Japan.
■ Eslite Xinyi Bookstore (誠品信義店), 11 Songgao Rd, Taipei City (台北市松高路11號). The gallery is open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm.
Tel: (02) 8789-3388 X1588
■ Until Jan. 31
Contemporary artist Yang Mao-lin (楊茂林) combines Buddhist mythology with pop culture icons in Lost in Wonderland (我的夢幻島). The sculptures and paintings on display suggest that people no longer project their yearnings onto spiritual idols. Instead, cartoons and superheroes are the symbols by which people make sense of their lives.
■ Lin & Lin Gallery (大未來林舍畫廊), 13, Ln 252, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段252巷13號). For a viewing, call (02) 2721-8488
■ Until Jan. 24
Vanishing Ground is a video and paper sculpture installation by Julie Bartholomew that documents the impact of commercial development and the forces of modernization on communal spaces that are integral to cultural identity. The installation constructed for the show draws on the art of Taiwanese funerary paper sculpture, while the video shows the burning of these ritual objects.
■ Barry Room, Taipei Artist Village
(台北國際藝術村百里廳), 7 Beiping E Rd, Taipei City (台北市北平東路7號). Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 10am to 6pm. Tel: (02) 3393-7377
■ Until Jan. 31
Paintings of blossoms and flowers serve as contemporary painter Lin Yueh-shiar’s (林月霞) central symbol in Touching — The Origin Point (觸動•原點). The paintings metaphorically explore the growth and decay of contemporary ideas about the environment.
■ 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). Open daily from 9am to 5pm. Tel: (02) 2758-8008
■ Until Sunday
Hsu Yang-hsu (徐永旭) attempts to eradicate MOCA’s time and spatial limitations with the outdoor exhibit Iteration — In Between (再•之間). The eight small- and large-scale clay sculptures on display employ an abstract expressionist mentality to explore the public and private spaces of body and mind.
■ 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) 2552-3720
■ Until Jan. 31
Metropolitan Wonderland (都會美樂地) is a series of technicolor paintings by Yu Way-shin (余威欣). The works depict city scenes such as the interior of a restaurant or coffee shop and are rendered in a surrealist style.
■ Julia Gallery (雅逸藝術中心), 3, Ln 166, Zhongcheng Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市忠誠路二段166巷3號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 9pm.
Tel: (02) 2873-9190
■ Until tomorrow
June 2 to June 8 Taiwan’s woodcutters believe that if they see even one speck of red in their cooked rice, no matter how small, an accident is going to happen. Peng Chin-tian (彭錦田) swears that this has proven to be true at every stop during his decades-long career in the logging industry. Along with mining, timber harvesting was once considered the most dangerous profession in Taiwan. Not only were mishaps common during all stages of processing, it was difficult to transport the injured to get medical treatment. Many died during the arduous journey. Peng recounts some of his accidents in
What does the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in the Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) era stand for? What sets it apart from their allies, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)? With some shifts in tone and emphasis, the KMT’s stances have not changed significantly since the late 2000s and the era of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) current platform formed in the mid-2010s under the guidance of Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), and current President William Lai (賴清德) campaigned on continuity. Though their ideological stances may be a bit stale, they have the advantage of being broadly understood by the voters.
Artifacts found at archeological sites in France and Spain along the Bay of Biscay shoreline show that humans have been crafting tools from whale bones since more than 20,000 years ago, illustrating anew the resourcefulness of prehistoric people. The tools, primarily hunting implements such as projectile points, were fashioned from the bones of at least five species of large whales, the researchers said. Bones from sperm whales were the most abundant, followed by fin whales, gray whales, right or bowhead whales — two species indistinguishable with the analytical method used in the study — and blue whales. With seafaring capabilities by humans
In a high-rise office building in Taipei’s government district, the primary agency for maintaining links to Thailand’s 108 Yunnan villages — which are home to a population of around 200,000 descendants of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) armies stranded in Thailand following the Chinese Civil War — is the Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC). Established in China in 1926, the OCAC was born of a mandate to support Chinese education, culture and economic development in far flung Chinese diaspora communities, which, especially in southeast Asia, had underwritten the military insurgencies against the Qing Dynasty that led to the founding of
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