Fractals — Writing (碎形.書寫) is an exhibit of black-and-white photos by Chien Yung-chung (簡永宗) that depicts urban scenes and their inhabitants.
■ 1839 Little Gallery (1839小藝廊), B1, 120 Yanji St, Taipei City (台北市延吉街120號B1), tel: (02) 2778-8458. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 8pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until June 15
Photo courtesy of 1839 Little Gallery
Liu Chih-hung (劉致宏) reveals his fascination with the trivial but realistic aspects of urban life in Neptune (海王星). Liu’s work includes paintings, sculptures and manuscripts. A discussion and lecture on Liu’s work, led by Lee Ching-chih (李清志) and Chen Tai-song (陳泰松), will be given on Saturday from 3pm to 4:30pm.
■ MOT Arts, 3F, 22, Fuxing S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市復興南路一段22號3樓), tel: (02) 2751-8088. Open daily from 11am to 9pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 5pm. Until July 17
What?! (有什麼事嗎) is a solo show by Hsiao Chu-fang (蕭筑方). Hsiao’s paintings of people are inclined toward a freestyle, almost graffiti-like playfulness. Her frenetic, or automatic, working style parallels what the artist perceives as the speed of contemporary life.
■ IT Park Gallery (伊通公園), 41 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街41號), tel: (02) 2507-7243. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 1pm to 10pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 7pm. Until July 2
Border of Imagination (想像的邊界) is a solo show of new pencil-on-paper drawings by Chen Min-tse (陳敏澤). Chen’s random combination of recognizable characters and scenes rendered with bold and delicate strokes embody the mythology of the East with the postmodern conceptualism of the West.
■ Art Den (藝研齋), 3F, 309, Xinyi Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市信義路四段309號3樓), tel: (02) 2325-8188. Open Mondays to Fridays from 11am to 5pm, and Saturdays from 10am to 6pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until June 25
Impressions of Taiwan (臺灣風情‧印象) brings together 100 watercolor paintings that focus on “Taiwan-related subjects” as a means of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China and “bear witness to [its] evolution over the past century,” according to an exhibition blurb.
■ 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. Admission: NT$30
■ Until June 12
Kumogakura, which means “hidden clouds,” presents six paintings, two installations and a sculpture by Japanese artist Ai Yamaguchi, whose manga-inspired works are inspired by The Tale of Genji, a classical novel that recounts the life of the son of a Japanese emperor.
■ Aki Gallery (也趣藝廊), 141 Minzu W Rd, Taipei City (台北市民族西路141號), tel: (02) 2599-1171. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6:30pm
■ Until June 5
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
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
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
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your