Sixty galleries from Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, China and South Korea will participate in this year’s edition of Young Art Taipei (台北國際當代藝術博覽會), an art fair devoted to promoting the work of emerging artists under the age of 45. The fair also features lectures on Asia’s contemporary art market. On the Net: www.youngarttaipei.com
■ Sunworld Dynasty Hotel Taipei (台北王朝大酒店), 100 Dunhua N Rd, Taipei City (台北市敦化北路100號)
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 8pm. Friday and Saturday from 12pm to 8pm and Sunday from 12pm to 6pm. Admission: NT$150
Photo Courtesy of Young Art Taipei
2011 Art Revolution Taipei (A.R.T 2011) takes a novel approach to art fairs by devoting its booths to artists rather than galleries. The fair comprises over 1,200 objects — sculpture, painting, drawing, installation, photographs and prints — by 216 artists, ranging from modern European masters (Picasso, Miro, Rembrandt and Dali) to lesser-known contemporary artists from the US, Taiwan, France, Spain, Germany, Russia, Japan and South Korea. A.R.T 2011 also features a thematic charity program. More than 100 local and international celebrities from the worlds of art, fashion, sport and religion will create and donate a works art that will be auctioned off during the fair, with the proceeds going to various charities. On the Net: www.arts.org.tw
■ Taipei World Trade Center Hall 2 (台北世貿二館), 3 Songlian Rd, Taipei City (台北市松廉路3號)
■ Tomorrow, Friday and Saturday from noon to 8pm and Sunday from 11am to 5pm. Admission: NT$100
Five photographers from Hong Kong document the changing landscape of urban spaces and social phenomena in Megafauna. The photographers — whose work depicts everything from buildings to nightclubs to street culture — include Raymond Chan (陳偉民), Chan Kwong-yuen (陳廣源), Suen Shu-kwan (孫樹坤), Mak Siu-fung (麥兆豐) and Tse Ming-chong (謝明莊).
■ Taiwan International Visual Arts Center (TIVAC — 台灣國際視覺藝術中心), 29, Ln 45, Liaoning St, Taipei City (台北市遼寧街45巷29號), tel: (02) 2773-3347. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11:30am to 7pm
■ Until June 12
A Dwelling in Infinite Brightness (接近永晝的寓所) is a solo exhibit of new works by Taipei Ceramic’s award-winning artist Hsu Chih-chi (許芝綺). Hsu’s milky-white abstract sculptures are delicate meditations on the interconnectedness of form and substance.
■ Sing Art Gallery (新心藝術館), 67 Shengli Rd, Greater Tainan (台南市勝利路67號), tel: (06) 275-3957. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 8pm; closed Mondays and the second and fourth Sunday of every month
■ Until May 29
Sound installations, video, poetry and photography are among the works found in New Narrative (新敘事), a group exhibition of artists from the US, Switzerland, Germany and England that seeks to both question and broaden people’s perceptions of the temporal in a global context using the latest in digital media.
■ Digital Arts Center (台北數位藝術中心), 180 Fuhua Rd, Taipei City (台北市福華路180號), tel: (02) 7736-0708. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until June 12
Sakshi Gallery is currently holding an exhibition of works by photographer and installation artist Hsu Chia-wei (許家維). Overdubbing (疊錄) is a video and sculptural installation that examines pop and rock music. The War (戰爭) presents a number of photos of the same tank from different perspectives.
■ Sakshi Gallery (夏可喜當代藝術), 33 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街33號), tel: (02) 2516-5386. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 11am to 7pm and 11am to 5:30pm on Sundays
■ Until June 26
The year was 1991. A Toyota Land Cruiser set out on a 67km journey up the Junda Forest Road (郡大林道) toward an old loggers’ camp, at which point the hikers inside would get out and begin their ascent of Jade Mountain (玉山). Little did they know, they would be the last group of hikers to ever enjoy this shortcut into the mountains. An approaching typhoon soon wiped out the road behind them, trapping the vehicle on the mountain and forever changing the approach to Jade Mountain. THE CONTEMPORARY ROUTE Nowadays, the approach to Jade Mountain from the north side takes an
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
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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