Contemporary artists from Taiwan, Macau and China put a contemporary spin on traditional Chinese landscape painting in New Landscape — Ink Painting in Motion (傳統與現代山水相遇的驚豔火花), a group show presented in two parts. New Landscape seeks to update the traditional genre through the use of unconventional media (oil, acrylic, gouache) and the employment of a visual vocabulary drawn from outside the field. Howard Chen (陳浚豪), for example, uses thousands of pins to build up a landscape painting using methods reminiscent of Seurat’s pointillism.
■ Leisure Art Center (悠閒藝術中心 — also known as Nou Gallery), 232, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段232號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm; closed Mondays. Tel: (02) 2700-0239
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until July 17
Painting, sculpture and digital photography are brought together in Every Time When I Look Around, a group exhibit by four contemporary artists from South Korea and one from Japan. The artists seek to imbue commonly found objects (stuffed animals, furniture, clothing) and images (old photographs, celebrity portraits) with a symbolic language meant to subvert the banality of contemporary society.
■ Asia Art Center (亞洲藝術中心) 177, Jianguo S Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市建國南路二段177號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6:30pm. Tel: (02) 2754-1366
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until July 4
Data and Vision (日本新潮當代藝術特展) is a group exhibition by six artists from Japan who use installation, painting and photography to examine the effects of the Internet on the world of art. More specifically, the show attempts to reveal how the Internet, seen here as an omniscient platform of visual data, enables artists to seek out and appropriate the works and styles from other practitioners, thus creating new forms of art.
■ Aki Gallery (也趣), 141 Minzu W Rd, Taipei City (台北市民族西路141號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6:30pm. Tel: (02) 2599-1171
■ Until June 27
Emerging Chinese contemporary painter Zhou Jinhua (周金華) adopts a birds-eye perspective to examine human nature in Absurd Reality (荒謬的真實). Zhou’s images of multiple human players interacting on a stage of bleak cityscapes and landscapes suggest helplessness and anxiety in the present and pessimism for the future.
■ Gallery 100 (百藝畫廊), 6, Ln 30, Changan E Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市長安東路一段30巷6號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm. Tel: (02) 2536-2120
■ Until July 4
French haute couture has taken over the first floor of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. In Le Defile, the museum displays 145 costumes and accessories created by world-renowned fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier for choreographer Regine Chopinot. The show includes corsets, tutus and tights.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), 181, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市中山北路三段181號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:30am to 5:30pm, closes at 8:30pm on Saturdays. Tel: (02) 2595-7656
■ Until Aug. 15
Rituals Cast in Brilliance — Chinese Bronzes Through the Ages (吉金耀采-中國歷代銅器) offers viewers a look at the ritual uses of bronze objects — weapons and vessels — beginning from the Xia Dynasty up to and beyond the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, when iron replaced bronze as China’s principle metal. The displayed objects are supplemented with explanatory material outlining the manner of smelting, breakthroughs in craftsmanship and the place of bronze in Chinese culture.
■ National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院), 221, Zhishan Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市至善路二段221號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm, and until 8:30pm on Saturdays. Tel: (02) 2881-2021. Admission: NT$160
■ Ongoing
The military affairs, technology, economy, daily life, art and religion of the Three Kingdom period are examined in Legends of Heroes: the Heritage of the Three Kingdoms Era (英雄再起─大三國特展). The 100 artifacts on display include bronzes, decorated tiles, paintings, calligraphy, seals, ceramics, lacquerware, gold and copper vessels, wood-carvings, and modern handicrafts. The exhibition focuses on three main themes: the official histories of the era, the period as depicted in the 14th century novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三國演義), and the continuing influence of the Three Kingdoms era in popular culture.
■ National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館), 49 Nanhai Rd, Taipei City (台北市南海路49號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Tel: (02) 2361-0270. General admission: NT$250
■ Until Sept. 5
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