Video, photography, painting and sculpture will be displayed in It Takes Four Sorts (四不像), an exhibition that brings together artists and curators from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Macau, in what TFAM calls a “Cross-Straight-Four-Region Artistic Exchange Project.” Try repeating that five times quickly as you shake your head at the “four region” bit. Anyway, as is seemingly appropriate, the show’s main theme is “chimera,” which is taken from a beast in Chinese mythology that has the features of four animals, and serves here as a metaphor for the “ambiguities and differences” that emerge amongst the, er, “four regions,” when they come together in an artistic exchange.
■ 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 and until 8:30pm on Saturdays. Admission: NT$30
■ Starts Sunday. Until Aug. 11
Photo courtesy of TFAM
The 1839 Gallery will hold a solo exhibition of photography by respected British photographer Michael Kenna. Entitled Asia View (亞洲風情), Kenna’s black-and-white images depict some of Asia’s most famous landscapes and architecture. His unique eye for composition, and the fact that he takes the photos at either dusk or dawn, enables him to produce pictures that are sometimes magical, sometimes eerie, but always atmospheric and otherworldly. Kenna will give a talk and sign books at the opening reception on May 26.
■ 1839 Contemporary Gallery (當代藝廊), B1, 120 Yanji St, Taipei City (台北市延吉街120號B1), tel: (02) 2778-8458. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 8pm
■ Starts Saturday. Opening reception on Saturday May 26 at 3pm. Until June 1
Photo courtesy of Eslite Gallery
Huang Ben-rei (黃本蕊) expresses her inner thoughts, emotions and revelations through Nini, a fictitious bunny that serves as the artist’s alter ego. I Know My Taichi (太極四式) presents a new series of paintings that illustrate a maturity in both her technique and symbolism. And while the overt cuteness of the subject matter might not be to everyone’s taste, Huang’s use of bright colors and the playfulness of Nini suggest that everything will work out.
■ Eslite Gallery (誠品畫廊), 5F, 11 Songgao Rd, Taipei City (台北市松高路11號5樓), tel: (02) 8789-3388 X1588. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until June 3
Hong Kong-born, Taiwan-based photographer Feng Chun-lan (馮君藍) turns his lens to still life photography with Before I Go Hence, and Be No More (在去而不返以先). Known for his psychologically rich monochrome portrait photography, Feng’s new series depicts flora and fauna endemic to Taiwan.
■ Art Door Gallery (藝境畫廊), 5F, 36, Ln 164, Hulin St, Taipei City (台北市虎林街164巷36號5樓), tel: (02) 2345-6773. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 2pm to 7pm
■ Until May 27
Fututre Pass (未來通行證) is a wide-ranging exhibition curated by Victoria Lu (陸蓉之), who has brought together 180 works of painting, video, installation, photography and sculpture by 130 artists from Taiwan, South Korea, China, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore. Thematically arranged around several dualities — East and West, past and future, yin and yang, universe and individual and the virtual and the real — the exhibition is meant to illustrate the variety of aesthetic voices heard within Asian contemporary art, while keeping an eye on the social, political, economic and cultural milieus in which the artwork is produced.
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung (國立台灣美術館), 2, Wucyuan W Rd Sec 1, Greater Taichung (台中市五權西路一段2號), tel: (04) 2372-3552. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm
■ Until July 15
Call for submissions
Sunday is the final day to apply for Taipei Artist Village’s (台北國際藝術村百里廳) 2013 artist-in-residence program at one of its two locations: Taipei Artist Village and Treasure Hill Artist Village. Taipei Artist Village is also accepting exhibition proposals for next year. Complete details and submission guidelines can be downloaded from the Taipei Artist Village Web site: www.artistvillage.org (Chinese and English). Applications submitted by e-mail will not be accepted.
■ For inquiries, send an e-mail to air@artistvillage.org. Tel: (02) 3393-7377 X208
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
Moritz Mieg, 22, lay face down in the rubble, the ground shaking violently beneath him. Boulders crashed down around him, some stones hitting his back. “I just hoped that it would be one big hit and over, because I did not want to be hit nearly to death and then have to slowly die,” the student from Germany tells Taipei Times. MORNING WALK Early on April 3, Mieg set out on a scenic hike through Taroko Gorge in Hualien County (花蓮). It was a fine day for it. Little did he know that the complex intersection of tectonic plates Taiwan sits
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