Chen Yin-ju’s (陳瀅如) first solo exhibit in Taiwan after spending close to a decade working in San Francisco presents a new series of video, installation, photography and drawing that focuses on the function of power within society, particularly its racist and nationalist manifestations. With Border (境) she narrows in on the “geographical, ideological and political borders” that define the West and suggests, somewhat conventionally, that these boundaries are socially constructed.
■ Cafe Showroom (場外空間), 462 Fujin St, Taipei City (台北市富錦街462號場外空間), tel: (02) 2760-1155. Open daily from 11am to 9pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until July 1
Photo Courtesy of Cafe Showroom
Christian iconography, Japanese manga and Taiwanese cosplay are among the cultural elements Hung Tung-lu (洪東祿) riffs off of in What Do We See? (我們看見什麼?), an exhibition of sculpture and prints created to depict an imagined future. All the human-like subjects shown in this series possess the double function of warrior and savior, suggesting that human security is bound up with its own destruction.
■ IT Park Gallery (伊通公園), 41 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街41號), tel: (02) 2507-7243. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 1pm to 10pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 7pm. Until June 30
Photo Courtesy of IT Park
Tina Keng Gallery’s Neihu location will hold a solo show of work by Chinese artist Guan Liang (關良). Guan’s color ink paintings depict figures from Chinese opera in a style that harks back to the wood-block prints and patterned lines of early 20th-century Japanese art. The exhibit will also feature a number of oil paintings from the last 30 years of his career.
■ Tina Keng Gallery (耿畫廊), 15, Ln 548, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路548巷15號), tel: (02) 2659-0798. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 7pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until June 24
In an era of the increasingly blurred boundaries between technology and art, interdisciplinary collaboration has become a sign of the times. At least that’s what the curators of We Are the Future (藝術超未來) want us to believe. The group show examines this theme through 18 works by teamLab, a Japanese collective of artists, programmers, engineers, mathematicians, architects and CG animators, to name a few. Are digital graphics the artistic wave of the future? Who knows, but if you are a geek, this is definitely a show you won’t want to miss.
■ 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 29
Another high-tech show currently on view is Procedural Architecture — Resolution in the Age of Meta—Digital (衍序建築展—後設數位時代的新維度), which brings together close to 40 artists working in the relatively new field of digital architectural design. Using a teahouse as their primary theme, three teams were established to design and fabricate three of these traditional leisure spaces. “Through examples of digitally designed artifacts, visitors shall be able to sense what is really happening in and what is fundamentally changing the world of architectural design,” states the museum’s press release.
■ MOCA Studio, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA, Taipei), 39 Changan W Rd, Taipei City (台北市長安西路39號), tel: (02) 2552-3720. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Admission for Procedural Architecture is free. General admission: NT$50
■ Until June 30
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
A sultry sea mist blankets New Taipei City as I pedal from Tamsui District (淡水) up the coast. This might not be ideal beach weather but it’s fine weather for riding –– the cloud cover sheltering arms and legs from the scourge of the subtropical sun. The dedicated bikeway that connects downtown Taipei with the west coast of New Taipei City ends just past Fisherman’s Wharf (漁人碼頭) so I’m not the only cyclist jostling for space among the SUVs and scooters on National Highway No. 2. Many Lycra-clad enthusiasts are racing north on stealthy Giants and Meridas, rounding “the crown coast”
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and