Eslite Gallery (誠品畫廊) will hold a group exhibit of painting and installation by Hong Kong artist Wilson Shieh (石家豪) and Singaporean artists Jane Lee (李綾瑄) and Donna Ong (王美清). Shieh draws on his background in Chinese ink painting to create caricatured figures that examine, symbolically, the process of identity building in modern society. Lee’s paintings, in which she incorporates unconventional materials, push the boundaries of her chosen medium and verge on sculpture. Ong’s installations are assemblages of objects commonly found in manufacturing processes.
■ Eslite Gallery (誠品畫廊), 5F, 11 Songgao Rd, Taipei City (台北市松高路11號5摟), tel: (02) 8789-3388 X1588. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until June 5
Photo courtesy of Eslite
For those of you who didn’t make it to Kaohsiung for One Is Everything: 50 Years of Work by Richard Lin (一即一切:林壽宇50年創作展), a solo exhibit of Richard Lin’s (林壽宇) work at Jia Art Gallery (家畫廊) is not to be missed. The gallery will exhibit a number of Lin’s minimalist and abstract paintings from the 1950s to the 1970s, a formative period in his career. The gallery will also exhibit two paintings that have never been shown in Taiwan.
■ Jia Art Gallery (家畫廊), 1F-1, 30, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市中山北路三段30號1樓之1), tel: (02) 2591-4302. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Opening reception on Friday at 6pm. Until June 26
The Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts will open three exhibits this week covering sculpture, painting and video installation. 2011 Haiku Sculpture (2011雕刻五,七,五) presents sculptural works from 20 participating educational institutions in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, China and Thailand. The exhibition adapts the Japanese minimalist form of poetry to sculpture, prompting the artists to ponder, interpret and reinterpret diverse themes such as tradition and modernity, writing and carving and the relationship between poetry and sculpture. Also at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Tranquility Through Windows (閒窗) offers a retrospective look at paintings by artist and critic Ni Tsai-chin (倪再沁). Ni’s work, which ranges from Chinese ink painting to oil-on-canvas, humorously critiques contemporary art fads. Ni will give a lecture on May 25 from 3pm to 5pm. Meanwhile, For Years and Years (N年後) presents a new series of videos by Lin Guan-ming (林冠名). Lin’s poetic videos of oceanscapes meditate on the ebb and flow of existence.
■ Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館), 1 Xueyuan Rd, Taipei City (台北市學園路1號), tel: (02) 2893-8870. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm
■ Haiku Sculpture: Opening reception on Friday at 5pm. Until June 19. Tranquility: Opening reception on Friday at 3pm. Until June 19. For Years and Years: Opening reception on Friday at 5pm. Until June 12
Fang/Grain Rain (方.穀雨) is an award-winning video by Chinese artists Qiu Shiming (裘世明) and Luo Haiming (駱海銘). Qiu and Luo transformed a photography studio into a working camera chamber and re-developed its stockpile of photos in an attempt to signify the cyclical passing of life. The video was made using 20,000 photographs. The exhibition also includes an archive of materials that tells the history of the photography studio and the people who have worked there since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
■ Chi-Wen Gallery (其玟畫廊), 3F, 19, Ln 252, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段252巷19號3樓), tel: (02) 8771-3372. Open Tuesdays through Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opening reception Saturday at 3pm. Until June 12
Plastic Cream is an exhibit of new works by superflat artist Lai Chiu-chen (賴九岑).
■ Lin & Lin Gallery (大未來林舍畫廊), 16 Dongfeng St, Taipei City (台北市東豐街16號), tel: (02) 2721-8488. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 10am to 7pm and Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3:30pm. Until May 29
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
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