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
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built