Sean Wang (王璽安) ponders the relationship between boxes and painting in Box: The Profound World (盒子—深邃的世界). On first glance, Wang’s paintings look like figurative representations of buildings or landscapes. On closer inspection, however, the compositions draw attention to the medium’s inherent spatial limits. Art critic Wang Sheng-hung (王聖閎) will lead a panel discussion about Sean Wang’s work on Saturday at 3pm.
■ Project Fulfill Art Space (就在藝術空間), 2, Alley 45, Ln 147, Xinyi Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市信義路三段147巷45弄2號), tel: (02) 2707-6942. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm
■ Until Nov. 11
Photo courtesy of Project Fulfill Art Space
Green in the City (蔓 · 城) is an exhibit by dance collective Dancecology (舞蹈生態系創意團隊). Based on the concept of environmental theater, which seeks to integrate performance art with the natural environment, the exhibit employs video and sculptural installation to examine the rhythms of life. Dancecology will give free performances on Sunday at 11am and 2pm at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts.
■ 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 Oct. 23
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
Facing Reality brings together eight German artists working in oil painting. From Michael Sistig’s lugubrious neo-expressionist figurative paintings of naked humans to Andrea Damp’s blurry women stranded in nightmarish landscapes, this is a must-see exhibit for anyone interested in contemporary painting.
■ 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 Oct. 30
Photo courtesy of Lin & Lin Gallery
Re-active Platform ponders the role and function of new media art in contemporary society with a series of video installations by six Germany-based artists from the artist collective of the exhibit’s title. A secondary goal is to clarify the opaque aesthetic concepts that underlie new media art, which co-curator Andreas Walther calls in his introduction “axiomatic, solipsistic [and] egocentric.” To do this, the curators have chosen interactive pieces to enable viewers to gain a deeper understanding of these concepts and their broader significance.
■ MOCA Studio — Underground (台北當代藝術館地下實驗‧創意秀場), Zhongshan MRT Station (中山捷運站). Admission: Free
■ Until Nov. 20
Sunset in an Empty Mountain (空山夕照) is a series of large-scale paintings by Chinese artist Yin Zhaoyang (尹朝陽). According to Lin & Lin Gallery’s press release, Yin’s work “tears down the barriers” between “Eastern and Western traditions,” but Yin follows a long tradition of China-trained painters who base their aesthetic language in both traditions, creating spiritually infused expressionist landscape paintings that evoke powerful emotional responses.
■ 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) 2700-6866. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Oct. 30
Wu Cheng-chang (吳政璋) will hold a solo exhibition at the Taiwan International Visual Arts Center as part of the gallery’s Vision of Taiwan (台灣美景) series of documentary exhibitions that is intended to draw attention to how we interact with the environment, both natural and artificial. Wu’s work is particularly resonant in this respect because he embeds himself in photographs shot at different locations throughout Taiwan. In the pictures, his face is overexposed and blanked out, suggesting that he is blind to the surrounding landscape, thus challenging viewers to think about that which is unseen.
■ 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 Oct. 30
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
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