Stream of Consciousness (意識流) brings together some older oil paintings and newer watercolors by Chen Min-tse (陳敏澤). Though somewhat sentimental in subject matter (birds, flowers, landscapes) and coloring (pastels), Chen’s paintings do suggest a dreamy, vaguely surreal aspect, with undercurrents suggestive of the artist seeking out a pop spirituality so as to escape the dreams of a darkness she is unwilling to face. There are also some abstract works on display painted, as the gallery blurb indicates, under the influence of music.
■ Art Den (藝研齋), 3F, 309, Xinyi Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市信義路四段309號3樓), tel: (02) 2325-8188. Open Mondays to Fridays from 11am to 5pm, and Saturdays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until April 20
Photo courtesy of Art Den
Performance artist and transgressive rock star Cheng Shih-Chun (鄭詩雋) returns to IT Park Gallery with a series of sculptures, Amorous (三‧八). We can’t decide whether to adore or hate Cheng’s new series of stainless steel sculptures done in monotones of metallic green, blue, yellow, white, black and purple. Hate because they are an obvious rip off of Jeff Koons’ overexposed reproductions, though here done on a significantly smaller scale. Love because these zoned-out space dudes, apparently meant to signify the eight generals, boogie on currency (Taiwanese, Canadian, Euro, US), Smart Phone in hand, as though zipped up on space mushrooms. You’ll probably need to enter a detox clinic after looking at these things.
■ IT Park Gallery (伊通公園), 2F-3F, 41 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街41號2-3樓). Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 1pm to 10pm. Tel: (02) 2507-7243
■ Opening Reception: 7:00pm, Sat, 16 March 2013 ---13 April 2013
Photo courtesy of NMH
The National Museum of History is currently holding a folk art print exhibition. The origin of the displayed prints can be traced back to the Sui Dynasty (581-618) but developed substantially during the Song Dynasty (1115-1234). By the end of the Qing Dynasty, however, the craft of making these prints had declined with the rise of modernization. The popular themes of prints used for home decoration come from Chinese legends, oral stories, novels, and plays. The exhibition reflects popular themes, such as longevity, fortune, blessings, happiness and scenes from legends, with sophisticated lines and a strong carving style representing the aesthetics of the common people.
■ National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館), 49 Nanhai Rd, Taipei City (台北市南海路49號), tel: (02) 2361-0270. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. General admission: NT$30
■ Ongoing
Photo courtesy of 99 degree art center
Oliver Lin’s (林勤霖) oil paintings reflect an attitude to life and an aesthetic quest. Having become acquainted in the early 80s with automatism, a style that suppresses conscious volition and allows the unconscious to control the creative process, he became free of the technical concerns that had inhibited his creativity. The viewer can see the free, yet curiously controlled, use of paint in his solo show Songs in the Night (夜間歌唱), a series of abstract paintings rendered with thick patches of paint in dark tones.
■ 99 Degrees Art Center (99°藝術中心), 5F, 259, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段259號5樓), tel: (02) 2700-3099. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6:30pm
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 3pm. Until April 7
Jao Chia-en (饒加恩) will change the interior of Project Fulfill Art Space with a spatial installation called Shortcut. The winner of the 2012 Taishin Arts Awards will construct a series of passages within the exhibition space, altering the spatial feel of the interior in an attempt to eliminate the exhibiting function of the gallery and in the process turning the exhibition space into a work of art.
■ 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
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 4pm. Until April 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
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
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