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 Issues such as socially withdrawn children and bullying work thematically into the drooping and languid sculptures made of acrylic paint on terracotta.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
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
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
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