The late Chen Tian-yang (陳天陽, 1940-2011) was a master Shaolin swordsman, but is best-known as a trailblazing sword maker. Forty of Chen’s creations are on display at A Memorial Exhibition of Chen Tian-Yang’s Creation of Swords and Knives (誰與爭鋒—陳天陽刀劍創作紀念展), alongside the historical literature that inspired them. Chen had patterned many of his works on legendary ancient swords, such as Zhuge Liang’s (諸葛亮) Demon-destroying Seven-star Sword (伏魔七星劍).
■ 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
■ Until Nov. 17
Photo courtesy of National Museum of History
Imminent Sounds: Falls and Crossings (迫聲音—音像裝置展) presents 17 video compositions of sound and image. Unlike traditional cinema, in which music is usually secondary to image, the pieces here use arts like dance, music and theater as equal partners that engage the others in a dialogue. Artists commissioned for the show include video pioneer Bill Viola, music video master Thierry de Mey and Pierre Alain Jaffrennou, founder of the France’s Grame National Center of Musical Creation, which coordinated this exhibition with the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM, 台北市立美術館). On Sunday, the museum opens its 2013 lecture series with a talk by Juan Gaitan, curator of the 8th Berlin Biennale. Speaking from his extensive experience in the art world, Gaitan will share his approach to curating exhibitions — a departure from the traditional thematic format. The talk will be in English with interpretation in Mandarin. For complete details, visit the TFAM Web site at www.tfam.museum.
■ 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
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Jan. 5
Photo courtesy of Chien Chung Lin
After Baltimore is painter Chien Chung Lin’s (林建忠) memoir of his young adult years in Maryland’s largest city. As a twenty-something, Lin left Taiwan in pursuit of a Master of Fine Arts. He ended up in Baltimore, a city that was foreign and trying, and where he ultimately came of age as an artist. His solo show features 30 mixed-media pieces depicting physical terrain blurred and contorted by his experiences and memories of the space.
■ Floor 8 — Contemporary Art Space (八樓當代藝術空間), 8F, 21, Ln 19, Shuangcheng St, Taipei City (台北市中山區雙城街19巷21號8樓), tel: (02) 2597-5919, open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm, closed on Mondays
■ Until Oct. 6
Disappearance of Subject (消失的主體) is an ambitious solo exhibition by new media artist Tao Ya-lun (陶亞倫). With ingredients like lights, fire and lenses, Tao builds three immersion experiences and two art installations to get audiences to think off the beaten path. In the titular work, the audience’s image is projected onto a wall in surprising, even traitorous ways, so that viewers lose the sense that they inhabit their own bodies — and can begin to analyze themselves objectively.
■ VT Artsalon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, 17, Ln 56, Xinsheng N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市新生北路三段56巷17號B1), tel: (02) 2597-2525. Open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 1:30pm to 9pm
■ Until Oct. 5
Butterflies, Violins, Glass & Vision (蝶,琴,琉,意) is a grab bag of an exhibition, featuring Taiwan’s largest playable cello, colored paper cutouts and delicate glassware by dozens of Hsinchu-based artists. The collection, on display in Greater Taichung until Sunday, is coordinated by Hsinchu’s Art Site of Railway Warehouse (新竹市鐵道藝術村), which has converted disused railway warehouses into an art village.
■ Taichung Creative and Cultural Park (台中創意文化園區), 362, Fuxing Rd Sec 3, Greater Taichung (台中市南區復興路三段362號), tel: (04) 2229-3079, open daily from 10am to 6pm
■ Ends Sunday.
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