Space and its relationship to human existence forms the theme of Urban Landscape, a new series of paper sculptures by Japanese artist Katsumi Hayakawa. Hayakawa’s 15 sculptures, built up with small rectangular and square cubes of paper, convey feelings of both expansion and constriction, and of living in densely populated urban centers full of skyscrapers and cubicle-like living quarters. As part of the exhibit, the gallery will invite 100 people to construct their own “dream home” with “paper bricks” — the basic element in Hayakawa’s artworks. Details can be found at: www.nougallery.com.
■ Nou Gallery (新畫廊), 232, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段232號), tel: (02) 2700-0239. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3:30pm. Until June 19
Photo courtesy of Nou Gallery
HELLO GOODBYE is a group exhibit that presents the work of resident artists and artist groups from Treasure Hill Artist Village. The exhibit’s title follows Monster Chang’s (張淑滿) examination of the greeting (hello) and farewell (goodbye) through imagery. Nick Gang’s (甘燿嘉) video Making Pictures of the Dead (遺照製作) pieces together photos as a means of examining the past while looking toward the future. Open Lab, a two-member art group consisting of Jin Chi-ping (金啟平) and Wu Guan-ying (吳冠穎), has produced a digital, interactive device called Denki Monster (電子妖怪祭) that reacts to electronic frequencies.
■ Attic Gallery (閣樓展覽室) and Cross Gallery (十字藝廊), Treasure Hill Artist Village (寶藏巖國際藝術村), 9, 11 and 13, Alley 59, Ln 230, Dingzhou Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市汀州路三段230巷59弄9, 11, 13號), tel: (02) 2364-5313 X121. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 3pm to 6pm and Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 6pm
■ Opening reception on Sunday at 2pm. Until June 26
Photo courtesy of TAV
Frame-Painting-Image (框-畫-影像) is a new series of abstract paintings by Taiwan-born, France-based artist Kevin Yu (游克文). Yu’s canvases consist of geometric squares and rectangles interspersed with thick flowing lines. Some feature a tiny video screen embedded in the center, enabling the viewer to ponder the contrast between a painted surface and video, mobility and immobility, the fleeting and the permanent on a two-dimensional surface.
■ Main Trend Gallery (大趨勢畫廊), 209-1, Chengde Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市承德路三段209-1號), tel: (02) 2587-3412. Open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until June 16
For many in Taiwan, jade symbolizes the highest ethical values of humankind and is imbued with philosophical meaning and spiritual value. Jade and the Age of Prosperity (玉映豐年) presents 250 jade artifacts bearing religious, political, ceremonial and funerary functions from the collection of jade connoisseur Cheng Jiuan-min (鄭俊民).
■ National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館), 49 Nanhai Rd, Taipei City (台北市南海路49號), tel: (02) 2361-0270. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. General admission: NT$30
■ Until June 12
The Evolutionary Reiterator (複衍者) brings together the photographic installations of three emerging artists: Chen Yu-erh (陳佑而), Chen Che-wei (陳哲偉) and Liu Chih-hung (劉致宏). The artists examine the nature of boundaries and space within the context of visual memory.
■ Agora Art Space (藝譔堂), 104, Ln 155, Dunhua N Rd, Taipei City (台北市敦化北路155巷104號), tel: (02) 8712-0178. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until June 26
One Piece Room is a new series of geometrically abstract, acrylic on canvas paintings by Li Cheng-hsun (李政勳). Li applies thick layers of paint to create a complex, three-dimensional effect, with each layer serving as a metaphor for Li’s emotional state.
■ 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
■ Until June 12
Straight and curved lines serve as symbols of conflict and birth, death and sex, in a new series of sculptures by Barry You (游忠平) titled A Praise of Life: Modern Sculpture in Ceramics (生命的禮讚). You’s geometrically abstract sculptures, made with colored and colorless glazes, appear to be suspended in mid air.
■ Yingge Ceramics Museum (鶯歌陶瓷博物館), 200 Wenhua Rd, Yingge Dist, New Taipei City (新北市鶯歌區文化路200號), tel: (02) 8677-2727. Open daily from 9:30am to 5pm, closes at 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays
■ Until June 12
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
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built