Breeze: The Landscapes of Liu Shih-tung (風微微-劉時棟個展) brings together a new collection of Liu’s mixed-media collage paintings. As with his previous efforts, Liu’s creative process is time-consuming and highly involved. He scours hundreds of books and magazines for suitable images and then cuts these into various shapes, such as animals, flowers and stars — imagery found in traditional paper cutting — which he then affixes to a board.
■ 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
■ Begins Saturday. Until Sept. 25
Photo courtesy of Lin and Lin
Noriko Yamaguchi expresses her views on reincarnation in Tsuchitarashi, her first solo show of photography and video to be shown in Taiwan. The exhibit also features a number of works that examine sexuality.
■ 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 1:30pm to 9:30pm, Sundays from 1:30pm to 7:30pm
■ Until Oct. 16
Photo courtesy of Sakshi Gallery
Red and Blue is an exhibition by two Japanese artists: Fuco Ueda and Kenichi Yokono. Yokono’s wood block compositions touch on themes evocative of Japanese manga, horror movies and monsters, while Ueda’s acrylic-on-canvas paintings of adolescent girls are executed in a surrealist style.
■ 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
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 6pm. Until Oct. 2
Taipei-born, London-based painter Chiang Yo-mei (蔣友梅) will hold her first solo exhibition, Spark (心火), at Tina Keng Gallery’s Neihu space. A practising Buddhist, her work presents the “raw power of the feminine” as a source of creation and destruction. Chiang’s work comments on processes of transformation, including the rebirth of the soul.
■ Tina Keng Gallery (耿畫廊), 15, Ln 548, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路548巷15號), tel: (02) 2659-0798. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 7pm
■ Until Sept. 25
Once Upon a Chair seeks to prove the thesis that “classic masters not only exist in painting, but also in fashion design.” Taking chairs as its central theme, this exhibition displays works by established and emerging artists, including a wooden chair decorated by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未), 3D acrylic painting by Hung Shao-pei (洪紹裴), and oil painting by Chinese artist Chen Yujun (陳彧君). The exhibition also features a number of stainless steel chairs that are from European design master Ron Arad.
■ Gallery J Chen, 3F, 40, Ln 161, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段161巷40號3樓), tel: (02) 2781-0959. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 9pm
■ Until Sept. 25
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
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
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
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