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
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
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In the aftermath of the 2020 general elections the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was demoralized. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had crushed them in a second landslide in a row, with their presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) winning more votes than any in Taiwan’s history. The KMT did pick up three legislative seats, but the DPP retained an outright majority. To take responsibility for that catastrophic loss, as is customary, party chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) resigned. This would mark the end of an era of how the party operated and the beginning of a new effort at reform, first under