The paintings by Chinese artist Zhang Hongtu (張宏圖) are informed by the landscape (山水, shanshui or “mountain water”) tradition of ink painting, with impressionist-inspired coloring. With Shanshui Today (山水今天), a solo show, he adds monkeys as a metaphor (of what, he refuses to say). A comment on evolution? A nod toward Journey to the West (西遊記)? Who knows? Zhang has said, however, that the primates are somehow connected to his concerns for our eroding environment.
■ 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
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 4:30pm. Until May 29
Photo Courtesy of Tina Keng Gallery
Colorful is a new series of painted wooden sculptures of women by Ai Haibara that, as you might have guessed, are quite colorful. According to the artist, the rainbow of colors serves as a symbol for the bearable lightness of being.
■ Butchart Contemporary Art Space (布查當代藝術空間), 155, Linong St Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市立農街二段155號). Open daily from 11am to 9pm. Tel: (02) 2820-9920
■ Until April 17
Capital Art Center is currently holding a retrospective exhibit on the life and work of watercolor artist and adventurer Max Liu (劉其偉). Liu’s paintings are informed by his extensive travels in South America and Southeast Asia and range from realistic nudes to cubist totemic emblems, both of which are based on his study of primitive art and culture at home and abroad.
■ 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 Sundays from 10am to 7pm. Tel: (02) 2775-5268
■ Until April 22
The inkstone has a long and storied history in Chinese culture and was developed and refined along with the evolution of writing tools. The Beauty of Natural Stone Markings of the Duan Inkstone (端硯石品之美) provides a glimpse of this style of inkstone, including its forms, decorative motifs and techniques of carving. The 55 inkstones on display are variously engraved with flying dragons, flowers and birds, figures and mountain decorations — all in sublime detail.
■ 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. General admission is NT$30. Tel: (02) 2361-0270
■ Until May 1
Plant of the Deep Sea (深海植物) is a solo exhibit by Japanese ceramicist Aya Murata. Murata’s ceramic sculptures are languidly surreal, somewhat spiky science-fiction studies of plant life rendered in aquamarine blues and greens.
■ Yingge Ceramics Museum (鶯歌陶瓷博物館), 200 Wenhua Rd, Yingge District, New Taipei City (新北市鶯歌區文化路200號). Open daily from 9:30am to 5pm, closes at 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Tel: (02) 8677-2727
■ Until April 24
Eslite Gallery is holding a double exhibition of Japanese artists Kazuna Taguchi and Teppei Kaneuji. Taguchi’s work in Gray, Mosaicism blurs the boundaries between painting and photography. She collects images from fashion magazines and the Internet, assembles them into a montage, renders it as a painting, and then photographs the painting. Kaneuji’s two-dimensional and three-dimensional installations and collages in Ghost in the City Lights reflect on dichotomies such as the urban and rural, light and shadow and illusion and reality.
■ Eslite Gallery (誠品畫廊), 5F, 11 Songgao Rd, Taipei City (台北市松高路11號5樓). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm. Tel: (02) 8789-3388 X1588
■ Until April 24
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