American artist Ryan Greenly likes the simple stuff: a clean diet, meditation and escapes into nature. His latest pieces, on view at solo show Jack (我,一無所有), were made in his periods of quiet and lonely mental activity. Greenly has papered over walls with material he discovered alone: flowers and leaves, pages torn from books, news clips, photos, quotes and pastiche sketches based on memories of people. Through the collages, he tries to share his monastic moment with his viewers, yet implies also that it’s impossible to extricate completely from contemporary civilization.
■ Barry Room, Taipei Artist Village (台北國際藝術村百里廳), 7 Beiping E Rd, Taipei City (台北市北平東路7號), tel: (02) 3393-7377. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 9pm
■ Until Nov. 9
Photo courtesy of Taipei Artist Village
Over the Mountain (山外山) is a retrospective exhibition for Chou Ying (周瑛, 1922-2011), one of Taiwan’s founding print artists and educators. Chou is best-known for his Ode to Stone series, which uses an unusual frottage (rubbing) — instead of carving — technique to preserve the texture of the stone surface. The National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館) brings together 150 works including his most famous prints, as well as never-before-shown pieces like dark realist sketches he completed in China between 1939 and 1948. Chou left the artworks behind when he fled to Taiwan, and they were hidden for years by his brother for fear of political persecution.
■ National Museum of History, 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 Dec. 15
Photo courtesy of Taiwan Design Museum
Fresh Taiwan (文創國際拓銷特展) is an exhibition showcasing 70 of Taiwan’s best-selling products from the budding cultural and creative (文創) industry. Items include UID’s (桔禾創意) Dolly — a lamb-shaped coin bank with separate “lamb chops” for different currencies — and iHorn, an iPhone amplifier and recorder shaped like a vintage Taiwan-issued vinyl record. This catalog of items has entered markets of Tokyo, Paris, London and four other cities to commercial success, and is on display now as an example for local artists trying to break into a lucrative and growing market.
■ Taiwan Design Museum (台灣設計館), 133 Guangfu S Rd, Taipei City (臺北市光復南路133號), tel: (02) 2745-8199 ext. 379, open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:30am to 5:30pm, closed on Mondays, general admission: NT$50
■ Until Nov. 17
Photo courtesy of Taiwan Music Institute
Taiwan’s Grand Maestros (臺灣音樂憶像) is a memorial exhibition for Chang Hao (張昊), Kuo Chih-yuan (郭芝苑) and Chen Su-ti (陳泗治), late classical music composers who helped make Taiwanese music a genre. The show features their handwritten scores, letters and other personal items, as well as vintage posters, programs and newspaper coverage of their concerts. The exhibition includes free lectures and concerts of each composer’s works in Taipei on Nov. 10 and Greater Taichung on Nov. 22. To register or to learn more, visit www.tmi.ncfta.gov.tw.
■ Taiwan Music Institute (臺灣音樂館) at the National Center for Traditional Arts (國立傳統藝術中心), 26 Hangzhou N Rd, Taipei City (臺北市杭州北路26號), tel: (02) 2341-1200, open Mondays to Fridays from 9am to 4:30, closed every first Monday of the month from 9am to 1pm
■ Opens Monday. Until Nov. 29
CM Leung (蔡敏亮) brings Hong Kong-style wedding photography to Huashan 1914 Creative Park for the Bounce Art Exhibitions (就是要跳藝術展), a series of month-long solo exhibitions that opened July 18. Leung works with live props such as ceremonial guards to create western, highly stylized scenes that border on the surreal. Last year, Leung was named a Top 10 Chinese photographer by Portrait Photography Magazine and a Top 30 Asian wedding photographer in Asia by Signature Wedding Magazine.
■ Red Brick Area (紅磚六合院), Huashan 1914 Creative Park (華山1914文創園區), 1, Bade Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市八德路一段1號), tel: (02) 3322-3663, open Sundays to Thursdays from 11am to 7pm, Fridays and Saturdays from 11am to 8pm
■ Until Nov. 10
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would