Hsu Che-yu’s (許哲瑜) exhibit The Perfect Suspects (無姓之人) plays on the animated news of the Apple Daily and Next Media Animation. For Hsu, the “medium is no longer invisible, but an opaque intermediary faithfully transmitting the message,” where “an event becomes a product self-directed and self-acted by someone, a nameless character — the perfect suspects.” At the same time, his video and photography raise questions about the boundary between truth and fiction.
■ 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
■ Opening reception and guided tour by artist on Saturday at 2pm. Until Oct. 23
Photo courtesy of Digital Arts Center
Yuan Goang-ming (袁廣鳴) examines what he sees as the temporal and positional registers of memory in Before Memory (在記憶之前), a solo exhibit at Tina Keng Gallery’s Neihu space. Working in video installation and photography, Yuan nostalgically recalls his childhood home, which serves as a starting point to expand on his ideas of place and remembrance. Yuan invites viewers along for the journey — one that enables us to explore our own pasts.
■ 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
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 6pm. Until Nov. 6
Photo courtesy of 99° Art Center
Return to Innocence (歸真) is a solo exhibit of oil paintings by Chen Hsien-tung (陳顯棟). Chen’s work celebrates the beauty of nature with fine, elegantly textured paintings rendered with perfectly proportioned blocks of color reminiscent of abstract expressionism. The lines, shapes and colors woven into the painting are natural forms that suggest Chen’s “uninhibited innocence.”
■ 99° Art Center (99度藝術中心), 5F, 259, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段259號5樓), tel: (02) 2700-3099. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm
■ Until Oct. 2
FIT: Fashionista in Taiwan (臺灣當潮時尚設計展) explores the broad range of Taiwan’s contemporary design styles and thinking under one roof, showcasing the country’s talent. The exhibit features work by veteran designers such as Jasper Huang (黃嘉祥) and Isabelle Wen (溫慶珠), as well as those like Chen Shao-yan (陳劭彥) and Liao Ying-yi (廖瑩怡), who now enjoy significant international attention.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA, Taipei), 39 Changan W Rd, Taipei City (台北市長安西路39號), tel: (02) 2552-3720. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Admission: NT$50
■ Until Nov. 13
A Fable of Japanese Contemporary — Ten Sols brings together some of the hottest artists working in Japan, including Yayoi Kusama, Yoshitomo Nara, Takashi Murakami and Yoshitaka Amano. The media range from oil and acrylic painting to video installation and sculpture.
■ Metaphysical Art Gallery (形而上畫廊), 7F, 219, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段219號7樓), tel: (02) 2711-0055. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6:30pm
■ Until Oct. 23
On the Edge Between History and Design — Exhibition of Taiwan’s 100 Years of Design (歷史與設計的交鋒 — 2011臺灣百年設計大展) is a poster exhibit timed to coincide with next month’s International Design Alliance (IDA) Congress. The exhibit is divided into three sections: Taiwan Poster Archives surveys the history of Taiwanese posters; Exhibition of Well Known Poster Designers presents a selection of posters related to culture, art and museums by international artists; and Design at the Edges contains 36 works from the forthcoming IDA. Combined, the exhibit aims “to provide a comprehensive view of the poster, past and present,” and to reveal the design link between Taiwan and the world.
■ 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
■ Begins Friday. Until Nov. 13
Chiu Chien-ching’s (邱建清) ceramic sculptures fired in tones of ochre resemble the morphology of the rocks of the coast of Yilan where he grew up. With the Jialoushui Series (佳洛水系列), Chiu examines his relationship to the ocean and rocks by juxtaposing the motion of the former with the “solidified tranquility” of the latter.
■ Yingge Ceramics Museum (鶯歌陶瓷博物館), 200 Wenhua Rd, Yingge District, 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 Oct. 2
Riverbed Theatre’s (河床劇團) Just for You exhibition at the Urban Core Art Block (城中藝術街區) consists of props, sets and video clips from the four plays in its Just for You festival, which was performed at Hotel Eight Zone (八方美學商旅) in Taipei last month.
■ Urban Core, 89-4, Zhonghua Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市中華路一段89-4號). Open daily from 12:30pm to 8:30pm
■ Until Oct. 2
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
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
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