A City of Others (他城記) brings together five emerging Chinese artists who were born after and have pondered China’s rapid economic and societal changes since the country’s “open door policy” of 1979. Using various mediums — painting, installation, illustration and sculpture — the artists examine their own and their country’s recent history in relation to that of other cultures.
■ Lin & Lin Gallery (大未來林舍畫廊), 16 Dongfeng St, Taipei City, (台北市東豐街16號), tel: (02) 2700-6866. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 4pm. Until Oct. 28
Photo courtesy of Lin & Lin Gallery
Melancholy in Progress (憂鬱的進步), the title of a biennial exhibition of video art called Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition (台灣國際錄像雙年展), examine’s the pursuit of progress in its various manifestations in modern life, including medicine, sanitation, technology, speed, mobility and growth. Has progress become a desire of modern society that has no destination and no end? What is the truth of progress? The unceasing pursuit of progress, the exhibition suggests, has developed the syndromes of compulsive disorders that has resulted in depression.
■ Hong Gah Museum (鳳甲美術館), 11F, 166 Daye Rd, Taipei City (台北市大業路166號11樓), tel: (02) 2894-2272. Open Tuesdays through Sundays from 10:30am to 5:30pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until Dec. 30
Rite of Silence (內觀感) is a solo exhibition of photography by Wu Shang-lin (吳尚霖). As the title suggests, Wu is interested in empty spaces and abandoned places, where the echoes of the former residents can be metaphysically discerned.
■ Fotoaura Institute of Photography (海馬迴光畫館), 2F, 83 Chenggong Rd, Greater Tainan (台南市成功路83號2樓), tel: (06) 200-8856. Open Wednesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 8pm
■ Until Nov. 4
Feedback: Reflexion is an exhibition of video and sound by Japanese artist Masayuki Kawai. Masayuki’s interest revolves around using old video equipment to create noise feedback, which is then linked up to images on a monitor, thus creating an arbitrary and abstract dialogue between the two.
■ Chi-Wen Gallery (其玟畫廊), 3F, 19, Ln 252, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段252巷19號3樓), tel: (02) 8771-3372. Open Tuesdays through Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Oct. 27
Archaeology and Ruins of the Angkor in Cambodia is a traveling exhibition organized by the French School of Asian studies that seeks to depict the excavation and restoration work done at the ancient site through 50 black-and-white photographs. According to the museum, the aesthetic value of the images alone makes them worth seeing because they restore something of Ankor’s glory before it was partially ruined by the ravages of time.
■ Hsinkang Culture Center of Chiayi County (嘉義縣新港文化館), 2, Ln 111, Tengyun Rd, Hsinkang Township, Chiayi County (嘉義縣新港鄉登雲路111巷2號)
■ Until Oct. 14
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
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
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would