Insportsration (動見) examines the politics of sport using 21 mixed media pieces by Australian, Indian and Taiwanese artists. Yu Cheng-ta (余政達), winner of last year’s Beacon Prize at Art Fair Tokyo, satirizes the relationship between business and sport with Tennis Players: two perfectly coifed Caucasian players in a publicity photo resembling a toothpaste advertisement. Chen Ching-yao (陳擎耀) thinks about sport as a tool for programming bodies. His International Radio Exercise Taiwan Version are single-channel videos in which grown men dance, reflexively and almost helplessly, to the morning exercise medley they were taught long ago in the public school system.
■ 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 7pm
■ Until Aug. 16
Photo Courtesy of lin & lin gallery
Sharing Memories & Connecting Generations (串聯世代的生活記憶) is a nostalgic walk down memory lane via cartoons and museum pieces. Greater Tainan’s National Museum of Taiwan History displays toys, bikes and other long-gone objects from the daily life of yesteryear alongside watercolor illustrations by Liu Hsing-chin (劉興欽), the award-winning creator of cartoon Brother A-san and Great Auntie (阿三哥與大嬸婆). Born in 1934, Liu grew up in a small Hsinchu village during Taiwan’s first economic boom.
■ National Museum of Taiwan History (臺灣歷史博物館), 250, Changhe Rd Sec 1, Greater Tainan (台南市長和路一段250號),tel: (06) 356-8889, open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm, closed on Mondays
■ Until Sept. 1
Photo Courtesy of Project Fulfill Art Space
Painter Hsiao Chin (蕭勤) was born in Shanghai, grew up in Taiwan and is a prime mover in Asia’s modern art movement. In the solo show, Great All (大能), he presents his latest work that contemplates the end of life. Lashings of blank space are the most prominent feature, followed by blue blocks and delicate spots that make up a kind of star trail. Lines gradually vanish and appear again, and seem just about to stretch beyond the confines of the canvas.
■ 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
■ Until July 28
The 2013 Yilan International Children’s Folklore and Folkgame Festival (宜蘭國際童玩藝術節) is a 51-day event with workshops, water park games, performances and exhibitions for children. This year’s exhibitions include a solo show for one of Taiwan’s leading children’s book illustrators. Play, Turn: Artist Jimmy’s Gallery of Children’s Picture Books, recreates scenes from Jimmy Liao’s (幾米) books using giant props and character pieces. Children can meet the tiny monster under the bed in The Monster Who Ate Darkness (吃掉黑暗的怪獸), or try out different jobs and their equipment just like the protagonist in I Can Be Anything! (我會做任何事!). Other exhibitions at the children’s festival are Folk Game Museum, a playable collection of Taiwanese games, and Surprise for Age 18 at River Bank, featuring 18 student art pieces that interpret the Yilan folk song Diu Diu Dong (丟丟銅).
■ Dongshan River Water Park (冬山河親水公園), 2, Qinhe Rd Sec 2, Yilan County (宜蘭縣五結鄉親河路2段2號), tel: (03) 9600-322, open daily from 9am to 7pm. Admission: NT$250 weekdays, NT$300 on weekends
■ Until Aug. 25
Using ballpoint pens, Tzeng Yong-ning (曾雍甯) renders spores, cell nuclei and strange flora with microscopic precision. As the eye moves, the visual focus of the works appears to jump, so that Tzeng’s two-dimensional canvases come alive. Works on display now at solo show Into the Color Density (凝彩斑斕) have also been exhibited in New York, Rome and Hungary.
■ Accton Art Gallery (智邦藝術館), Yanxin 3rd Rd Sec 1, Hsinchu City (新竹市研新三路一號), tel: (03) 5770-270 ext. 1907, open Mondays to Fridays 10am to 6:30pm, Closed on weekends
■ Until Aug. 25
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
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
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built