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
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
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s
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