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 Issues such as socially withdrawn children and bullying work thematically into the drooping and languid sculptures made of acrylic paint on terracotta.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
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
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
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s