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
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
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
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