Chu Teh-I (曲德義) returns to Main Trend Gallery with Integrate Into One (並生為一), a new series of abstract paintings. Chu adopts a consistently unique perspective in interpreting and exploring the genre, pushing the limits of the two-dimensional art form.
■ 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 June 16
Photo Courtesy of Main Trend Gallery
The Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts will open four exhibits this weekend. Drifting Towards an End (末日漂流) is a large-scale installation by Tsong Pu (莊普), an artist equally well known for his geometric abstract paintings. Tsong randomly prints words related to bodies of water (creek, river, lake and ocean) onto spoons and suspends them by string, thus symbolizing the interconnectedness of this life-giving resource. Creators of Dialogue (創造對話語言者) brings together eight artists working in sound, video and interactive installation as a means of exploring disparate elements of new media art. Displacement is the primary theme that links the work of seven artists in New York Travel Program (紐約遊歷計畫), which is named after a residency program that the exhibiting artists were involved in. Production of Senses: When Knowledge Becomes Attitude (感性生產:當知識成為態度) is a large group exhibit of “artists and educators” that reflects on the academization of art.
■ 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
■ The opening reception for all four exhibits takes place on Friday at 5pm. Drifting towards an End and Creators of Dialogue run until July 1. New York Travel Program and Production of Senses run until July 8
Photo Courtesy of Galerie Grand Siecle
A naked woman sits reading a book on a bed of sumptuous blood-red cloth, the background an eroded landscape of dead trees and cracked earth. Such are the visual contrasts that Chinese artist Kao Yuan (高媛) presents in The Appearance of Era (時代表象), a new series of staged photography that probes the surface appearance of beauty and its relationship to environmental destruction for human comfort and luxury.
■ Galerie Grand Siecle (新苑藝術), 17, Alley 51, Ln 12, Bade Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市八德路三段12巷51弄17號), tel: (02) 2578-5630. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 8pm. Until June 15
Sixty galleries, from the US, Taiwan, Australia, Japan, China and South Korea, will participate in this year’s Young Art Taipei (台北國際當代藝術博覽會), an art fair devoted to promoting the work of emerging artists under the age of 45. The fair also features lectures on Asia’s contemporary art market. On the Net (Chinese and English): www.youngarttaipei.com
■ Sheraton Hotel, 9F, 12, Zhongxiao E Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市忠孝東路一段12號9樓), tel: (02) 8772-6017
■ Saturday from noon to 8pm and Sunday from noon to 6pm. Admission: NT$150
Part disaster movie, part installation that muses on neoliberal economics, Flooded McDonald’s is a 21-minute video by Superflex, a Danish collective that includes Jakob Fenger, Rasmus Nielsen and Bjornstjerne Christiansen. Shot inside a life-size replica of a McDonald’s outlet, the artists gradually submerge the space with water, which suggests the “consequences of mass consumption, and touches on issues such as global warming and natural disasters brought about by high economic growth,” the gallery writes in its introduction.
■ TheCube Project Space (立方計畫空間), 2F, 13, Alley 1, Ln 136, Roosevelt Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路四段136巷1弄13號2樓), tel: (02) 2368-9418. Open Tuesdays through Sundays from 12pm to 7pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until June 17
The year was 1991. A Toyota Land Cruiser set out on a 67km journey up the Junda Forest Road (郡大林道) toward an old loggers’ camp, at which point the hikers inside would get out and begin their ascent of Jade Mountain (玉山). Little did they know, they would be the last group of hikers to ever enjoy this shortcut into the mountains. An approaching typhoon soon wiped out the road behind them, trapping the vehicle on the mountain and forever changing the approach to Jade Mountain. THE CONTEMPORARY ROUTE Nowadays, the approach to Jade Mountain from the north side takes an
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