Yao Jui-chung (姚瑞中) wears many hats: curator, fine arts professor, critic, theater buff. He’s a graffiti artist, too, the one behind an R-rated mural captioned Taiwanese that made local headlines in 2011. In the solo exhibition Something Blue (小幻影), Yao adds photography to the list, presenting 35 hand-developed images of Taiwan he took between 1992 and 2012. The set is about the desolation and shiftlessness of society, a theme that loosely connects Yao’s eclectic oeuvre. Also at the exhibition are personal and professional notes that offer rare context into the artist’s work.
■ TKG+ Projects Taipei, B1, Ln 548, 15 Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市內湖區瑞光路548巷15號B1), tel: (02) 2659-0798, open Tuesdays to Fridays from 10am to 7pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Oct. 20
Photo courtesy of Tina Keng Gallery
To Dream in Flowery Bowers: 2013 Flower Arrangement Exhibition (花鄉逐夢—2013中華插花藝術展) is an annual show of classic Chinese flower arrangements, co-organized since 1984 by the Chinese Women Orchid Art Association and the Chinese Floral Arts Foundation. This year, artists were challenged to make floral art that does not use pots, an unorthodox restriction that leaves the flowers without their usual repository for water.
■ 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
■ Opens today. Until Oct. 27
Photo courtesy of National Museum of History
Japanese silkscreen artist Mitsuo Kim brings two series, Laokoon Group Sculptures and row, to the solo exhibition SWTICH. In a departure from classic serigraphy, he uses paraffin wax to whip up what is otherwise a two-dimensional image.
■ Aki Gallery (也趣藝廊), 141 Minzu W Rd, Taipei City (台北市民族西路141號), tel: (02) 2599-1171. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6:30pm
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 3pm. Until Oct. 27
Enchanting Bridges of the World (千橋百媚) is the winners’ gallery for Yang Ming Cultural Foundation’s contest on photos depicting scenes or cultures of bridges. Panelists chose 120 photos of classic bridges out of about 4,000 submissions. Top prize in Bridges of the World category went to Chen Pei-ru’s (陳姵如) work on London’s Tower Bridge. In the Bridges of Taiwan category, the gold went to the Xindian Creek (新店溪) and New Taipei Bridge (新北大橋) by Huang Hsiao-si (黃孝思).
■ Cai Yu Art Gallery (采玉藝廊), National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (國立中正紀念堂), tel: (02) 2343-1100, open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 6pm
■ Opens tomorrow at 2pm. Until Oct. 31
Interpretation between Virtual and Reality (虛實演繹) is a solo exhibition by Huang Chin-hua (黃錦華), an ink painter who says stones are the mainspring of her creativity. Some of her works, like Big Stone, are literal stones that are first outlined with sharp strokes and then painted over gently until it’s smooth and mossy — a metaphor for how real stones come to be. Other paintings appear to be more fanciful interpretations of the stone: Self Portrait is a floating island that, like the stone, attempts to “condense the universe into one single object,” as Huang writes in the gallery notes.
■ Kalos Gallery (真善美畫廊), 269, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段269號), tel: (02) 2836-3452. Open daily from 10am to 6:30pm, closed Sundays
■ Until Oct. 26
In the mainstream view, the Philippines should be worried that a conflict over Taiwan between the superpowers will drag in Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr observed in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last year, “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.” Such sentiments are widespread. Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer
March 18 to March 24 Yasushi Noro knew that it was not the right time to scale Hehuan Mountain (合歡). It was March 1913 and the weather was still bitingly cold at high altitudes. But he knew he couldn’t afford to wait, either. Launched in 1910, the Japanese colonial government’s “five year plan to govern the savages” was going well. After numerous bloody battles, they had subdued almost all of the indigenous peoples in northeastern Taiwan, save for the Truku who held strong to their territory around the Liwu River (立霧溪) and Mugua River (木瓜溪) basins in today’s Hualien County (花蓮). The Japanese
Pei-Ru Ko (柯沛如) says her Taipei upbringing was a little different from her peers. “We lived near the National Palace Museum [north of Taipei] and our neighbors had rice paddies. They were growing food right next to us. There was a mountain and a river so people would say, ‘you live in the mountains,’ and my friends wouldn’t want to come and visit.” While her school friends remained a bus ride away, Ko’s semi-rural upbringing schooled her in other things, including where food comes from. “Most people living in Taipei wouldn’t have a neighbor that was growing food,” she says. “So
Whether you’re interested in the history of ceramics, the production process itself, creating your own pottery, shopping for ceramic vessels, or simply admiring beautiful handmade items, the Zhunan Snake Kiln (竹南蛇窯) in Jhunan Township (竹南), Miaoli County, is definitely worth a visit. For centuries, kiln products were an integral part of daily life in Taiwan: bricks for walls, tiles for roofs, pottery for the kitchen, jugs for fermenting alcoholic drinks, as well as decorative elements on temples, all came from kilns, and Miaoli was a major hub for the production of these items. The Zhunan Snake Kiln has a large area dedicated