Reality — Representation (實.現) presents a series of documentary photographs recently acquired by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Over the past two decades, photography in Taiwan has continued to evolve and the exhibition is meant to reflect how the photographers convey their affection for and interpretation of the country, particularly its environmental features, cultural patterns and struggles in a rapidly changing society. The exhibit is composed of photographs taken over the course of 20 years by eight photographers born in the 1950s and 1960s.
■ 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
■ Until Jan. 13
Photo courtesy of TFAM
According to Mind Set Art Center (安卓藝術), A Conscious Choice for Temporary Blindness is an artistic experiment that is both abstract and contradictory. It features representational yet dreamy paintings by Romanian artists Ana Maria Micu and Catalin Petrisor, who use their canvases to imagine the state of blindness as a metaphor for lost memories. As the gallery’s press release says, “they individually play with images and various materials to discover the multiple possibilities [to] re-establish a state of parallel reality between illusion and reality.”
■ Mind Set Art Center (安卓藝術), 16-1, Xinsheng S Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市新生南路三段16-1號), tel: (02) 2365-6008. Open Tuesdays to Sunday 2pm to 6pm
■ Until Jan. 13
Photo courtesy of metaphysical art gallery
Tetsu and Otyu is a solo exhibition of photographs by Japanese photographer Tomomi Sakuma that narrates the day-to-day life of his grandparents, their names being the exhibit’s title, following World War II, and are meant to inspire hope to those who lived through last year’s earthquake and tsunami. “I hope the pictures ad story told within the pictures could also help others, who see them, to find joy and happiness,” writes Sakuma in his artist’s introduction.
■ 1839 Little Gallery (1839小藝廊), 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
■ Until Dec. 30
Hsu Yin-ling’s (許尹齡) new series of 21 paintings, collectively titled Gourmet Drama (料理劇), meditates on the relationship between people and the food they eat, drawing the viewer’s attention to common associations of food and how they symbolize different aspects of contemporary society.
■ Project Fulfill Art Space (就在藝術空間), 2, Alley 45, Ln 147, Xinyi Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市信義路三段147巷45弄2號), tel: (02) 2707-6942. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm
■ Until Feb. 7
Dialogs presents the work of 14 emerging and established South Korean artists, including Nam June Paik, who is generally considered an important innovator of video installation. Painting, sculpture, photography and video come together in works that span influences ranging from pop art to abstract to expressionism.
■ Metaphysical Art Gallery (形而上畫廊), 7F, 219, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段219號7樓), tel: (02) 2711-0055. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6:30pm
■ Until Jan. 6
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 a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not