Yeh Chu-sheng (葉竹盛) returns to Nou Gallery (新畫廊) with 29 new paintings in Wonderland of the Heart (喚心造境). The canvases on show are of two styles. Yeh’s abstract expressionist works meditate on the fluctuating states of the rational and irrational, the conscious and subconscious, in bold paintings that are punctuated here and there with religious symbolism, while his realist works take flowers and plants as their primary subject matter to signify how the natural environment can enlighten the human mind.
■ 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
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3:30pm. Until April 15
Photo courtesy of Nou Gallery
Beautiful World: Survival Dance is a solo show by Chim Pom, a Japanese artist collective consisting of five males and one female who work in sculpture, video and photography and examine how natural disasters affect society.
■ 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
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 4pm. Until April 15
Photo courtesy of Project Fulfill Art Space
Staying on the theme of disaster, the JUT Foundation for Arts and Architecture (忠泰建築文化藝術基金會) presents Making as Living, an exhibition and forum, mounted in collaboration with Japan’s 3331 Arts Chiyoda, that documents the various engagements undertaken by artists and activists following the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of northeastern Japan in March last year. The exhibit consists of 14 filmed interviews with leading figures in the regeneration process as well as documents on the diverse activities of 80 artists, architects, designers and activists.
■ Chung Shan Creative Hub (中山創意基地), N1 Exhibition area (N1展區), 21, Minsheng E Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市民生東路一段21號), tel: (02) 2562-5101. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Opens Friday. Until April 8
Photo courtesy of Art Den
Pai Tsung-chin (白宗晉) seeks to blur the distinction between abstraction and realism with his solo show In the Form of Flowers (花華法畫). Pai’s working method is to splash watery ink onto a large sheet of paper, allow it to disperse freely across the surface, and then dry. He then adds his own representational flourishes such as flowers.
■ Art Den (藝研齋), 3F, 309, Xinyi Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市信義路四段309號3樓), tel: (02) 2325-8188. Open Mondays to Fridays from 11am to 5pm, and Saturdays from 10am to 6pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until March 31
The Kuandu Museum will open two exhibits on Friday. Interiors and exteriors, dreams and waking life and the figurative and the literal are themes that emerge from Chen Hui-chiao’s (陳慧嶠) installation Beyond the Tree and Clouds (樹上的雲). Combining natural and artificial elements — photos, sound and objects culled from nature — Chen’s work offers an environment where the viewer can ponder a “sense of space of sky meeting earth,” according to the museum’s press release. Visual Rhetoric of a Generation (同代人的視覺修辭) presents three thematically linked solo exhibits of photography and painting by Jen Hsiao-lin (任小林), Jing Ke-wen (景柯文) and Chang Hsiao-tao (張小濤).
■ 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
■ Exhibitions begins Friday. Beyond the Tree runs until April 22. Visual Rhetoric runs until April 29
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50