Camouflage is a solo exhibition by Emma Hack, the skin artist behind Gotye’s Somebody I Used to Know . Hack is displaying 15 photographs from three projects, including Birds of Prey — live birds in painted trees — and Wallpaper Mandela, hand-painted women who blend seamlessly into intricate floral wallpaper.
■ Bluerider Art, 9F, 25-1, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (北市大安區仁愛路四段25-1號9樓), tel: (02) 2752-2238, open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 6pm
■ Until Oct. 6
Photo courtesy of Bluerider Art
Seminal photographer Chang Chao-tang (張照堂) brings 400 works from his career to solo exhibition Time: The Images of Chang Chao-tang (歲月). Pieces, which date from 1959 to the present, include never-before-seen portraits, a series taken with a cell phone, eight documentaries and TV programs, notes, sketches and two “exhibitions within an exhibition” — replicas of experimental installations from the 1960s. Together, they’re a record of a pioneering artist’s career, and of Taiwan’s sweeping sociopolitical changes over the same period. Chang is winner of the Golden Bell, National Award for Arts and the Executive Yuan’s National Culture Award for lifetime achievement.
■ 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
Photo courtesy of Yo Gallery
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Dec. 29
In 1986, German sociologist Ulrich Beck coined the term “risk society” to describe how the future world will have little time for wealth production, as it will be occupied with managing human-created “risks” such as global warming. Risk Society (風險社會) features young Germans who believe that the risk society has already become a reality. Curated by Melanie Bono, 22 German artists present mixed-media installations organized under four themes: Micro-Macro; Detachment and Disenchantment; We Are All Individuals; and New Models of Collaboration. Matthias Fritsch is showing his silent film with live accompaniment by Taiwanese band Nighteentael (十九兩).
■ 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. General admission: NT$50
Photo courtesy of MOCA, Taipei
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Nov. 10
The Grime Casebook (髒兮兮事件簿) features graffiti art by AhdiaOne (阿迪啊萬) and Candy Bird. Their themes cover “dirty” social phenomenon such as forced land development and politicians who are well-dressed but corrupt to the core.
■ Yo Gallery (悠畫廊), Store B44, Creative Area, Zhongshan Metro Mall, Taipei City (臺北捷運中山地下書街 文創區B44展間), tel: (02) 2563-3151, open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 8:30pm
■ Opening reception today at 6:30pm. Until Oct.13
In Memory of the Minimalist Master (紀念台灣極簡主義宗師) presents the legacy of Richard Lin (林壽宇, 1933-2011), a Taiwanese painter who made his name in London. Jia Art Gallery’s retrospective show includes his earlier abstract paintings and 10 classical pieces from the White series, which use different shades of white to embody states like thin, wet and dry.
■ Jia Art Gallery (家畫廊), 1F-1, 30, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市中山北路三段30號1樓之1), tel: (02) 2595-2449. Open Tuesdays through Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until Sept. 29
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50