My Easy World (自在的雲川) presents 46 color glue paintings by Chan Yu-chin (詹玉瑾). The exhibit’s title is based on Chan’s Buddhist name, cloud and river, and like the artist’s spiritual moniker, these hyperrealist paintings of mountains and seas and landscapes generate a sense of calm.
■ National Taiwan Museum of the Arts (國立台灣美術館), B1 Gallery, 2, Wucyuan W Rd Sec 1, Taichung City (台中市五權西路一段2號), tel: (04) 2372-3552. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 9am to 5pm and Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm. Admission: Free
■ Until March 3
Wang Liang-yin (王亮尹) continues her depiction of all things saccharine — jelly beans, cupcakes and sundaes — in her solo show of acrylic paintings Blending Fantasy — You and Me (攪拌器的你的我反覆幻想,尤其是在清醒的時候). For this show, Wang applies her vibrant palette to portrait painting.
■ Aki Gallery (也趣), 141 Minzu W Rd, Taipei City (台北市民族西路141號), tel: (02) 2599-1171. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6:30pm
■ Until Jan. 30
There are three worthy exhibits currently on view at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. On the third floor, Modernity and Foresight (現代.前瞻) is a centennial exhibit on the life and work of Chang Chi-hua (張啟華), one of the first Taiwanese artists to study in Japan. Chang helped to pioneer the Western-influenced genres of landscape and portrait painting in Taiwan and is hailed by the museum as an important figure in the development of painting in Kaohsiung. On the fourth floor, Earthline presents work by Colin Offord, an Australian artist whose abstract paintings are deeply influenced by the natural landscape and cultural characteristics of Australia. Offord’s artistic language is a combination of Eastern and Western arts. Also on the fourth floor, Flowing, Kaohsiung (流.高雄) is an exhibit curated by Jason Shih (施承澤), who showcases the site-specific installation work of Huang Pei-ying (黃沛瀅). Commissioned specifically for the gallery space, Huang piles, stacks and distorts cardboard to create a 3D-like space that resembles abstract paintings.
■ Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, 80 Meishuguan Rd, Kaohsiung City (高雄市美術館路80號), tel: (07) 555-0331. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm. Admission: Free
■ Modernity and Foresight, until March 27. Earthline and Flowing, Kaohsiung, until March 6.
The Moon (當時明月) is an exhibit of new works by Pan Hsin-hua (潘信華). Pan’s collage paintings are reinterpretations of the bizarre spatial experiments of Ming Dynasty landscape painters combined with a compositional framework reminiscent of the Buddhist frescoes at China’s Dunhuang Caves, also known as the Mogao Caves.
■ Moon Gallery (月臨畫廊), 6, Ln 589, Yingcai Rd, Taichung City (台中市403英才路589巷6號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm. Tel: (04) 2371-1219
■ Until Feb. 26
The paintings of Lee Shi-chi (李錫奇) are not unlike looking down on a city’s topography from an aircraft. These abstract works of grids and geometrical shapes, currently on view at Capital Art Center, continue his exploration of Chinese colors, symbols and materials using a Western aesthetic.
■ Capital Art Center (首都藝術中心), 2F, 343, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段343號2樓), tel: (02) 2775-5268. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 7pm
■ Until Jan. 28
Tan Kuo-chih’s (譚國智) solo exhibition of oil paintings demonstrates his fascination for Taiwan’s landscapes. Mountains, rivers and fields are among the places Tan depicts to illustrate the country’s beauty.
■ Der Horng Art Gallery (德鴻畫廊), 1 Jhongshan Rd, Tainan City (台南市中山路1號), tel: (06) 227-1125. Open daily from 10am to 9pm
■ Until Feb. 15
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
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located