Capital Art Center (首都藝術中心) begins the Lunar New Year with a group exhibit of paintings by well-known Chinese artists including Zhang Xiaogang (張曉剛), Yue Minjun (岳敏君) and Zeng Fanzhi (曾梵志).
■ 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). Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 10am to 6:30pm. Tel: (02) 2775-5268
■ Begins on Friday. Until Feb. 26
Photo courtesy of Capital Art Center
The Golden Age of the Qing: Treasures From the Shenyang Palace Museum (大清盛世:瀋陽故宮文物展) presents 124 objects — armor, weapons, costumes and vessels — borrowed from China’s Shenyang Palace, also known as the “Forbidden City beyond the Great Wall” because it was the seat of two Manchu emperors during the Qing Dynasty. Divided into five sections — The Rise of the Manchu, Warriors from Wilderness, Beauties of the Court, Emperors and Empire, and Luxuries of the Court and Imperial Life — the exhibit charts the Manchu’s rise to power and the daily life of its rulers after forming.
■ 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. Admission: NT$250
■ Until May 1
Root of Treasure is a public video installation by Japanese artist Shimura Nobuhiro. The artist takes the Chinese character for shell (貝) as the key subject for his installation and ponders its linguistic relationship with the logogram for treasure (寶貝), which includes the shell character. The light installation features a fountain of shells pouring down a riverside in a display that signifies arrival.
■ Fuhe Riverside Park (福和河濱公園) in Gongguan (公館). Shown daily from 6:45pm to 11pm
■ Until March 27
Damn It, It’s the World Wonder (糟了!是世界奇觀) is a group exhibit by 11 Taiwanese artists who examine the relationship between extravagant buildings — Taiwan’s Taipei 101 or the Burj Khalifa in Dubai — and greed.
■ Taipei National University of the Arts — Kuandu Museum of Arts (國立臺北藝術大學關渡美術館), 1 Xueyuan Rd, Taipei City (台北市學園路1號). Open Tuesdays through Sundays from 10am to 5pm. Tel: (02) 2896-1000 X2432
■ Until Feb. 27
Pursuing Artistic Brilliance With Self-confidence (神韻‧自信~蒲添生百年特展) is a centenary exhibit on the life and work of Pu Tien-sheng (蒲添生), a sculptor known mainly for his memorial statues, busts of famous historical figures and figurative sculptures of gymnasts and animals. The exhibition is comprised of a total of 100 works by Pu — 80 sculptures, 13 pastel paintings, three oil paintings, Chinese ink painting and calligraphy. The museum has also constructed a replica of Pu’s studio, complete with his working materials, so as to offer a deeper understanding of the artist’s working process.
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立台灣美術館), 2, Wucyuan W Rd Sec 1, Greater Taichung (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 13
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
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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