In City Cracks (城市隙縫), curator Sean Hu (胡朝聖) brings together 10 artists working in paint, digital photography and installation to ponder changes in the urban environment. Rather than exhibiting the works in a building, Hu created a temporary gallery that emphasizes the transitory flux between new and old.
■ Mobile Gallery, 5 Jinxi St, Taipei City (台北市錦西街5號)
■ Until Aug 15. Opening tomorrow at 6:30pm
In The Delicacy of Collage — Polar Region (拼湊的微處 — 極地), Chen Sung-chih (陳松志) employs metal, paper and mirrors to symbolize the distances people travel.
■ Project Fulfill Art Space (就在藝術中心), 2, Alley 45, Ln 147, Xinyi Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市信義路三段147巷45弄2號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm. Tel: (02) 2707-6942
■ Until Aug. 15. Opening this Saturday at 3pm
Emerging artist Su Meng-heng (蘇孟鴻) presents 21 of his recent paintings, silkscreen prints, installations and sculptures in Manjusaka (彼岸花). Drawing on the Chinese tradition of flower (manjusaka means “heavenly flower” in Sanskrit) and bird painting developed during the late Qing Dynasty, Su’s vibrant, almost gaudy works, offer a satirical take on the refined styles prevalent during that era.
■ Tina Keng Gallery (大未來耿畫廊), 15, Ln 548, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路548巷15號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 7pm. Tel: (02) 2659-0798
■ Until Aug. 1
Form/No Sign: Works by Taiwan’s Established Ceramicists (形.無形 — 臺灣中堅輩陶藝家系列特展之一) offers an in-depth look at the artists and trends that have emerged in the local ceramics scene since the 1980s. The museum states that no understanding of contemporary ceramics would be complete without looking at what immediately preceded it because of the unprecedented opportunities to play with tradition and the influence of Western practices it afforded Taiwanese artists.
■ Yingge Ceramics Museum
(鶯歌陶瓷博物館), 200 Wenhua Rd, Yinge Township, Taipei County (台北縣鶯歌鎮文化路200號). Open daily from 9:30am to 5pm, closes at 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Tel: (02) 8677-2727
■ Until Aug. 15
Mobility Sound and Form is a sensory experience comprising 10 audio-visual works that transform sound through digital media. Curated by France’s Centre National de Creation Musicale, the exhibition, which also includes video, installation and performance art, challenges viewers’ preconceptions of music.
■ 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
The National Museum of History is holding a retrospective show on the life and work of Lalan
(謝景蘭), a China-born, France-based artist who died in 1995. Entitled Fragrance of Mind (蕙景蘭心), the exhibit comprises 60 landscape oil paintings that combine Chinese aesthetics and Western painting styles created by the artist over her 45-year career.
■ 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 is NT$30
■ Until Aug. 8
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
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
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would