Becoming Cyborg (成為賽伯格) presents photographs, interactive installation and video by six artists from Taiwan and Japan whose work touches on issues of genetic engineering, particularly cloning technology, and prosthetics. In an age of rapid scientific and technological change, curator Hsieh Hui-ching (謝慧青) says the clear separation between human and machine has become blurred, and that “everyone is transforming into a cyborg.”
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立台灣美術館), 2, Wucyuan W Rd Sec 1, Greater Taichung (台中市五權西路一段2號), tel: (04) 2372-3552. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 9am to 5pm and Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm. Admission: Free
■ Until Feb. 5
Photo Courtesy of Sakshi Gallery
German artist Gal Kinan explores Taiwan’s industrial economy in Factory-Plastic-Worker. Over the past decade, the East Asian country’s manufacturing industry has been relocating en masse to China, where labor is cheap and environmental standards poor. Kinan investigates how these changes affect the lives of Taiwanese workers at two
companies that make toys.
■ Barry Room, Taipei Artist Village (台北國際藝術村百里廳), 7 Beiping E Rd, Taipei City (台北市北平東路7號), tel: (02) 3393-7377. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 9pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 2pm. Until Jan. 8
The Dreamy Thorns (濡夢之棘) is a solo exhibit of new paintings by Wu Yung-chieh (吳詠潔). Wu’s sentimental works, rendered in light pastel tones with a manga style, attempt to universalize her own life and troubles.
■ 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 3pm. Until Jan. 1
Wang Te-yu (王德瑜) continues her exploration of space with a new series of large-scale fabric installations at Kalos Gallery. Wang’s work envelops the gallery, forcing viewers to question their sense of space; we don’t so much as look at her works, as we do enter a world created by them.
■ Kalos Gallery (真善美畫廊), 269, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段269號), tel: (02) 2836-3452. Open daily from 10am to 6:30pm, closed Sundays
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until Jan. 14
China-born, New York-based artist Tony Wong (黃榮禧) appropriates creation myths and Chinese poetry for his recent series of drawings, paintings and sculpture, which is currently on display at Tina Keng Gallery’s Neihu space. According to the press blurb, Wong’s work ponders the “solitude of existence, [the] origin of the world, [the] meaning of life, feelings of change, anguished romance and passionate desire between men and women,” to name just a few of the topics this artist muses over.
■ 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 Dec. 23
Dusklit Pond (暮光池畔) is a solo exhibit of haunting black-and-white waterscapes by photographer Yang Chin-sheng (楊欽盛).
■ Fotoaura Institute of Photography (海馬迴光畫館), 2F, 83 Chenggong Rd, Greater Tainan (台南市成功路83號2樓), tel: (06) 200-8856. Open Wednesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 8pm
■ Until Dec. 18
World Is Over? (末‧未2013) asks whether predictions that the world will end are a hoax. Thirteen artists from the Taipei-based artist collective Second Soul Graphic Arts Society “transcend preexisting concepts and logics” and employ interactive installations, graffiti art, sculpture and printing to ponder doomsday scenarios involving environmental catastrophe and man-made disasters.
■ 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. General admission: NT$50
■ Until Jan. 29
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
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
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