According to Aki Gallery, the characteristics that gave rise to Leonardo da Vinci’s curiosity, Michelangelo’s obsession with perfection and Dante Alighieri’s profound understanding of humanity can all be found in Yes Taiwan IV, the fourth instalment of its Young Emerging Stars series of exhibits. A little overstated, perhaps. Yet the 15 artists were chosen for their remarkable talent and the fact that they’ve all had their own solo exhibitions. Notable artists include Fan Yang-tsung (范揚宗), whose David Hockney-esque paintings of highways took top honors at Young Art Taipei 2011. Also exhibiting are Shen Chao-liang (沈昭良), whose Stage, a series of photos showing portable cabaret stages, was selected as one of the best photography books by US-based Photo-eye magazine. Meanwhile, Kuo I-chen (郭奕臣) presents technology-based works from his series Lightyears (光年), which reflects his anxiety about the environment and was recently shown in a solo show at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
■ 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 6pm. Until April 1
Photo Courtesy of Aki Gallery
Strip Off, Marilyn Monroe (光光‧瑪麗蓮夢露) is a solo exhibition by Tan Kai-I (彈甲一). As the title suggests, Tan’s major theme is Marilyn Monroe, whose contradictions the artist attempts to capture in several stark oil-on-canvas compositions that are also meant to symbolize the paradoxes and absurdities of the 20th century. In one painting we see Monroe masturbating in a luxury car that’s about to crash; another replaces the Spanish soldier as captured in Robert Capa’s iconic The Falling Soldier with a naked Monroe.
■ Main Trend Gallery (大趨勢畫廊), 209-1, Chengde Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市承德路三段209-1號), tel: (02) 2587-3412. Open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 5pm. Until April 21
Photo Courtesy of Jia Art Gallery
Jia Art Gallery will hold two exhibitions to celebrate the grand opening of its renovated gallery space. The first is Back to the True Essence of Simplicity (反璞歸真), a solo exhibition of portraiture and landscape painting by Cen Long (岑龍). The second exhibit brings together works by old masters, including the oil paintings of Yang San-lang (楊三郎) and Liu Chi-hsiang (劉啟祥).
■ Jia Art Gallery (家畫廊), 1F-1, 30, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市中山北路三段30號1樓之1), tel: (02) 2591-4302. Open daily from 10am to 6pm
■ Opening reception on Sunday at 2pm. Until April 30
Photo Courtesy of TFAM
Chuang Chia-sheng (莊家勝), Ke Wei-kuo (柯偉國) and Wang Wu (王午) each explore different aspects of Taiwan in A Small Point of View (微小視點-點.點.點). Chuang’s pointillist paintings are inspired by the vibrant colors common in Taiwan’s popular religious culture. Ke uses ink to depict urban scenes that are “transformed into dots, layers and different time periods, climates and emotions,” according to Taipei Fine Arts Museum’s press release. Woodcut printing and ink are the primary mediums Wang employs to create landscape paintings with religious themes.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM, 台北市立美術館), 181, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市中山北路三段181號), tel: (02) 2595-7656. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:30am to 5:30pm; open until 8:30pm on Saturdays. Admission: NT$30
■ Begins Saturday. Until May 6
Peacocks, pelicans and pigeons are among the wildlife depicted in Images to Illustrate Life (顯像‧還生), a group exhibition of black-and-white photography by Lin Jia-an (林家安), Li Ren-yu (李仁裕) and Wang Li-chiu (王麗秋). Street scenes and portraiture are also included in this series of realist and abstract images.
■ 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 April 1
Turkish-born, France-based artist Onay Akbas deconstructs myths, figures and themes in One Act Play — The Glamorous Onay Akbas (獨幕劇:歐納‧阿卡巴的絢麗舞台), a solo show that brings together older and newer work. Akbas’ large and vibrant paintings have been categorized as “new expressionism” and “free figuration” because they are rendered with lively and imaginative brush strokes that playfully alter the human figure.
■ Wingrow Art Gallery (萬果菅國際藝術公司), 5, Ln 175, Da-an Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市大安路一段175巷5號), tel: (02) 2325-8253. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until April 7
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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
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