Wu Tung-lung’s (吳東龍) new series of paintings, collectively titled Gray Universe (灰色宇宙), continues the enigmatic patterns of his earlier geometric abstract work with muted coloring. The forms are reminiscent of the inkblots from a Rorschach test. A lecture on Wu’s work will be held at the gallery on Dec. 24 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 11:30am to 8pm
■ Until Jan. 22
Photo courtesy of MOT Arts
Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Edward Steichen are among the photographers whose work will be exhibited at American Modern Photo Exhibition (美國現代攝影), a show that offers a glimpse at the varying styles and evolution of early 20th-century photography in the US.
■ 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 and lecture on Saturday at 3pm. Until Jan. 31
Photo courtesy of Han Art Agency
Photo Taipei is an international art fair focusing on photography and video. In its third incarnation, the fair brings together 15 galleries from Japan, France and Taiwan. This year features a section titled Taiwan Young Artist Selected Exhibition, which consists of a special on-site area given over to emerging artists. There will also be a forum discussing the history of photography in Taiwan and the current market for collecting video and photography.
■ San Want Hotel (神旺大飯店), 5F, 172 Zhongxiao E Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市忠孝東路四段172號5樓), tel: (02) 2577-1676. Admission: NT$200
■ Opening reception tomorrow from 7pm to 9pm. Friday and Saturday from 12pm to 8pm and Sunday from 12pm to 7pm
Life Goes On (永恆之續) is a solo exhibit of new paintings by Japanese artist Yasuko Hayashi. Hayashi’s paintings are subtle renderings of objects and places, infused with her own sense of nostalgia and what she sees as the spiritual resonance that underlies the material world.
■ Han Art Agency (涵藝術), 4F, 703 Huaping Rd Sec 1, Greater Tainan (台南市華平路一段703號4樓), tel: (06) 298-9129. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 7pm
■ Until Dec. 21
Crescendo Prelude (漸進式序曲) presents 25 photographs and two videos by Tseng Yu-chin (曾御欽). In this new series, Tseng, who participated in the 2007 Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany, and is well known for his controversial videos and photography of childhood innocence, examines the daily lives of individuals at traditional markets and modern supermarkets.
■ Nou Gallery (新畫廊), 232, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段232號), tel: (02) 2700-0239. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Monday
The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung teamed up with Germany’s Art Museum Bonn to mount Videonale: Dialogue in Contemporary Video Art (當代國際錄像藝術對話). The exhibit presents 44 video works created over the past decade and selected for Videonale Bonn, a biennial of video art. Taiwanese artists include Chen Chieh-jen (陳界仁) and Tsui Kuang-yu (崔廣宇).
■ 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 through Sundays from 9am to 5pm. Admission: Free
■ Until Feb. 26
Nostalgia, regret and personal history are among the themes Chen Shun-chu (陳順築) explores in The Remnant Vision (殘念的風景), a solo exhibit of photography and image-based installation art ranging from his early works, which meditate on life, to his later spontaneous cityscape photography inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson’s concept of the “decisive moment.”
■ 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
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