A new series of large-scale paintings by Chiu Hsien-te (邱顯德) will be shown at 99 Degree Art Center. The works are the product of a personal breakthrough in the use of watercolor. Chiu combines the medium’s transparency and washes of color with ink painting’s lyricism and the layering and color saturation of oil painting. These flowing effects bring the paintings to life, allowing viewers to ponder the artist’s expansive landscapes.
■ 99 Degree Art Center (99度藝術中心), 5F, 259, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段259號5樓). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm. Tel: (02) 2700-3099
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until Feb. 20
Chinese painter Sang Huoyao (桑火堯) literally deconstructs his country’s landscape with Cosmic Spirit (境象), a new series of paintings. Not content with traditional ink materials, Sang works on silk cloth with paints made from mineral substances collected from various locations in China. The resulting ink wash paintings of dappled grays are expressionist renderings of the dichotomy between the Earth’s external appearance and the human body’s internal biology.
■ Soka Art Center (索卡藝術中心), 2F, 57, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段57號2樓). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 9pm. Tel: (02) 2570-0390
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 4pm. Until Jan. 30
Chang Teng-yuan (張騰遠) claims to move beyond the limitations of seeing with The Edge of Sight — After (望穿術:凝結之後的事情), a solo show of animated installations and paintings. With the intention of challenging commonly accepted perceptions of how art is viewed, Chang’s intricately designed viewing devices and stylized imagery present an alternate reality using what the artist describes as “guerrilla images.”
■ Galerie Grand Siecle (新苑藝術), 17, Alley 51, Ln 12, Bade Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市八德路三段12巷51弄17號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm. Tel: (02) 2578-5630
■ Until Sunday
Ambiguity and uncertainty are the two themes that link the paintings by three emerging artists — Joyce Ho (何采柔), Wang Tzu-ting (王姿婷) and Chung Yi-lung (莊毅朗) — in a group show of their representational and surreal paintings at La Chambre Art Gallery.
■ La Chambre Art Gallery (小室藝廊), 31, Ln 52, Siwei Rd, Taipei City (台北市四維路52巷31號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 9pm. Tel: (02) 2700-3689
■ Until Jan. 22
Swing (游) brings together light installations made by Japanese artist Shimura Nobuhiro that have been displayed at venues throughout Taipei over the past year.
■ 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 11am to 7pm, closes at 5:30pm on Sundays. Tel: (02) 2516-5386
■ Until Jan. 31
If you like manga and anime, The Golden Present is an exhibition for you. It presents the work of some of Asia’s hottest contemporary artists working in the “Super Flat” and “animamix” genres, including superstars such as Yoshitaka Amano, Yoshitomo Nara, Kwon Ki-soo, Eddie Kang and Yang Mao-lin (楊茂林).
■ Metaphysical Art Gallery (形而上畫廊), 7F, 219, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段219號7樓). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6:30pm. Tel: (02) 2711-0055
■ Until Jan. 26
Timed to coincide with the Taipei International Flora Exposition, Fragrance Fills the Courtyard: Chinese Flower Paintings Through the Ages (滿庭芳-歷代花卉名品特展) presents an historical overview of this sub-genre of ink painting. Divided into four sections — Beautiful Scenes All Year Round, Formal Expressions of the Mind, Their Many Features in Painting and Auspicious Signs and Lucky Omens — the works intimate the close connection flower painting has to the seasons and Chinese festivals. Additionally, the paintings demonstrate how artists used their skill of compositional arrangement and techniques such as ink outlines filled with colors, “boneless” washes, fine ink lines and freehand sketching to transform apparently simple flower subjects into a wide variety of forms.
■ 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 daily from 9am to 5pm. Tel: (02) 2881-2021. Admission: NT$160
■ Until May 31
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