The Taichung Tsai-mo Art Festival (臺中彩墨藝術節) is an annual show of ink art by artists from around the world. This year, the theme is hats: feathered hats, top hats, cowboy hats and other headgear conceived with ink by over 100 artists commissioned from 28 countries and regions. The festival also includes DIY hat-painting workshops, hat-themed arcade games and an art installation of countries and their “national hats.”
■ Taichung City Dadun Cultural Center (臺中市立大墩文化中心) and Tunghai Art Street (東海藝術街), 600 Yingcai Rd, Greater Taichung (台中市英才路600號), tel: (04) 2372-7311, open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 9pm
■ Until Oct. 2
Photo courtesy of TFAM
Witherland is Filipino-American artist Hanna Pettyjohn’s first solo exhibition in Taiwan. The project concludes a trilogy of portraits that began with Bundle — faces wrapped in fabrics — and continued with The Glass Between Us: faces behind mist or glass. Witherland is eight portraits that mix and match the textures from earlier projects, like those of hair, exposed skin, garments and the weather.
■ 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. Tuesdays to Sunday 2pm to 6pm
■ Until Oct. 6
Photo courtesy of Mind Set Art Center
At the 2013 Chinese Character Festival (漢字文化節), 36 Taiwanese artists present digital “calligraphy” that focuses on the beauty and logic of traditional Chinese characters. In one piece, Kuo Yu-ling (郭育伶) dissects “snow” (雪), showing precipitation (雨) wafting from a cloud over a mountain (山). Others like Lin Chun-liang (林俊良) and Hung Shih-chieh (洪世杰) think of a whole character as a mathematical equation, plugging in “radicals” like an English word to give birth to new meaning. Also at this annual exhibition are themed activities, performances and a souvenir shop.
■ Songshan Cultural and Creative Park (松山文創園區), 133, Guangfu S Rd, Taipei City (台北市光復南路133號), tel: (02) 2765-1388, open daily from 10am to 6pm
■ Until Sept. 27
Photo courtesy of Culture Affairs Bureau of the Taichung City Government
Monroe in 6min30sec (6分30秒的夢露) is the premiere of Tan Kai-i’s (彈甲一) new animation film. As the title suggests, the work lasts exactly six minutes and 30 seconds, featuring Marilyn Monroe in monochromatic sketches. As her face stumbles through each frame, you witness a whirlwind iteration of a charmed yet troubled life.
■ Main Trend Gallery (大趨勢畫廊), 209-1, Chengde Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市承德路三段209-1號), tel: (02) 2587-3412. Open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Oct. 12
Women Adventurers: Five Eras of Taiwanese Art (台灣現當代女性藝術五部曲) is an exhibition featuring Chang Lee Te-ho (張李德和), Chen Chin (陳進) and 16 other Taiwanese women artists who worked between 1930 and 1983. The show contains over 150 paintings, photographs, sculptures and installations created during five “eras” of Taiwanese art: Japanese colonization (1930-1945), the institutionalization of art-teacher education (1945-1950s), the proliferation of art groups (1957-1960s), the nativist era (1970s) and the establishment of fine art museums in the 1980s. The Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM, 台北市立美術館) is offering a lecture on Taiwanese female artists tomorrow from 2:30pm to 4:30pm and a guided tour on Sunday, Sept. 29 from 2:30pm to 4pm.
■ TFAM, 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 Sept. 29
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
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