Time Unfrozen — From Liu Guo-song to New Media Art (白駒過隙山動水行—從劉國松到新媒體藝術) examines the temporal, spatial and psychological connections between new media art and contemporary thought. Utilizing mature art forms such as light, sound, new technology, video and installation, as well as avant-garde modalities such as virtual reality and co-intelligence, 19 collaborative teams were brought together to explore Eastern aesthetics, particularly the relationship between humanity and nature.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM — 台北市立美術館), 181, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市中山北路三段181號). Open daily from 9:30am to 5:30pm, closes at 9:30pm on Saturdays. Tel: (02) 2595-7656
■ Begins Saturday. Until Jan. 2
PHOTO COURTESY OF TFAM
South Korean sculptor Park Seung Mo presents a new series of sculptures in a solo exhibit at Ever Harvest Gallery. Park continues his tradition of wrapping aluminum and copper wire around objects, such as a bicycle or piano, which makes the original form less insignificant while retaining its essence.
■ Ever Harvest Art Gallery, 2F, 107, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段107號2樓). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6:30pm. Tel: (02) 2752-2353. Admission: Free until Nov. 26
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until Nov. 7
PHOTO COURTESY OF TFAM
Grace Wawa Yang (楊后瑜) looks back at the freedom of childhood with In Between (曖), a solo exhibit that consists of two series of photographs — Memento Mori (2008) and Realm of Play — Reverie (2009-2010) — and a video installation. Yang’s work is intended to return the viewer to childhood, a time associated with freedom and fun, but also when we learn about rules and boundaries by testing them.
■ Sakshi Gallery (夏可喜當代藝術), 33 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街33號). Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 1:30pm to 9:30pm, Sundays from 1:30pm to 7:30pm. Tel: (02) 2516-5386
■ Until Nov. 7
PHOTO COURTESY OF EVER HARVEST GALLERY
Just when you thought that the Polaroid camera was relegated to the dustbin of archaic technologies, the folks from the company came up with a new monochrome film, PX Silver Shade, which it released earlier this year. A series of images made by three Taiwanese photographers using the film are currently on display in an exhibit titled Impossible. The images take Taiwan as the main subject — a wedding banquet, for example, or a seascape.
■ Taiwan International Visual Arts Center (台灣國際視覺藝術中心), 29, Ln 45 Liaoning St, Taipei City (台北市遼寧街45巷29號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6pm. Tel: (02) 2773-3347
■ Until Nov. 14
Infinity of Chi is a retrospective exhibit of China-born, Taiwan-raised and Italy-based artist Hsiao Chin (蕭勤). Hsiao, the winner of the 2002 National Fine Art Prize (國家文藝獎), studied abstract painting and was a prominent advocate of the avant-garde wave of Taiwanese modern art during the 1950s. Hsiao’s art contains both the distinctive style of modern art, as well as the profound philosophical influence of the East.
■ Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, 80 Meishuguan Rd, Kaohsiung City (高雄市美術館路80號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm. Tel: (07) 555 0331. Admission is NT$200, NT$150 for seniors and students
■ Until March 13
Paintings, calligraphy, antiquities and rare books form Dynastic Renaissance: Art and Culture of the Southern Song (文藝紹興-南宋藝術與文化特展), a wide-ranging exhibit that is displayed in 10 galleries on the first and second floor of the National Palace Museum. In four sections — Cultural Invigoration, Artistic Innovation, Life Aesthetics and Transmission and Fusion — the exhibit seeks to reveal how the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) employed innovative artistic tastes and aesthetic ideas to perpetuate its rule. [See story opposite.]
■ 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, closes at 8:30pm on Saturdays. Tel: (02) 2881-2021. Admission is NT$160, NT$80 for students
■ Until Dec. 26
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and