The Japanese makers of Line present Here We Are in Taipei — Line Friends (Line 玩偶展覽), their first attempt at turning the mobile messaging app into a full-scale exhibition. The formidable offerings include a gallery dedicated to Line-themed art, and another to original sticker drafts and other sketches apparently taken off the walls of the Line Corporation headquarters. Meet life-sized models of Brown the bear and Cony the bunny, then browse at a pop-up shop stocked with imported Line products. A special little app promises to unveil a new Line friend and other surprises.
■ 7F, National Taiwan Education Science Center (國立臺灣科學教育館7樓), 189 Shishang Rd, Taipei (臺北市士商路189號), open Mondays to Fridays from 9am to 5pm, Jan. 25 to Feb. 10 from 9am to 6pm, tel: (02) 8643-3955, general admission: NT$250
■ Opens tomorrow. Until April 27
Photo Courtesy of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts
The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立臺灣美術館) is marking the Spring Festival with a concert on Feb. 1 and two concurrent exhibitions. Thundering Success for the Year of Galloping Horses — the 29th Annual R.O.C. New Year Print Exhibition (29屆版印年畫展) collects 84 best-of block prints themed on the horse. Now in its 29th year, the juried exhibition received 232 submissions from professional and hobbyist folk printmakers nationwide. A second show, The Pioneers of Taiwanese Artists, 1951-1960 (刺客列傳, 四年級生), showcases 20 Taiwanese artists who came of age professionally in the 1980s. Breakneck social changes during the decade, notably the lifting of martial law and the nationwide press ban, spurred on this generation of artists to challenge both traditional aesthetics and contemporary ideological trends.
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立臺灣美術館), 2, Wuquan W Rd Sec 1, Greater Taichung (台中市西區五權西路一段2號) tel: (04) 2372-3552, open Tuesdays to Fridays from 9am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm
■ Until March 25
Photo Courtesy of VT Art Salon
A New Age of Exploration: National Geographic at 125 (探索無限─國家地理125年經典影像大展) opens in Greater Kaohsiung today with archival photographs of key moments around the world. On display are Steve McCurry’s Afghan Girl (1984), views of the Titanic shipwreck and other iconic photojournalism from National Geographic’s 125-year history. This international show’s Taiwan edition includes a gallery titled Memories of Taiwan (台灣記憶), a collection of local images that date back to 1920.
■ B6 and B7 at Kaohsiung’s Pier 2 Arts Center (高雄駁二藝術特區), 1 Dayong Rd, Greater Kaohsiung (高雄市大勇路1號), tel: (07) 780-9900, open daily from 10am to 6pm, general admission: NT$399
■ Opens today. Until April 13
Lai Pei-yu (賴珮瑜), an artist and art theorist, has developed a style of using white dots to depict everyday scenes, reducing them to such ambiguous abstractions that a viewer must access and reconsider memory to complete the picture. At Path (路徑), her latest solo exhibition, she uses dot writing in video art to let audiences almost see logic behind big aggregations of data, such as citywide traffic flow or 95 television channels at 8:31pm.
■ VT Art Salon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, 17, Ln 56, Xinsheng Rd Sec 3, Taipei (台北市新生北路三段56巷17號B1), tel: (02) 2597-2525, open Tuesdays through Fridays from 11:30am to 7pm, Saturdays from 1:30pm to 9pm, closed Sundays and Mondays
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 7pm. Until March 1
History Re-presented (再會歷史) features sculpture by iconic Chinese artist Cai Zhisong (蔡志松). His best-known series, Ode to Motherland (故國), is a look at the erosion of ancient traditions from present-day China. These sculptures are the last ancient Chinese standing: Some are naked with head bowed and fists clenched, while others are robed, deferent and resigned to the tide of time. Cai also brings to Taipei his recent series Clouds (浮雲) and Rose (玫瑰) — a collection of glorious, permanent, technically perfect blooms drained of color and warmth, each an open question about what ideal love should be.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA Taipei, 台北當代藝術館), 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, admission: NT$50
■ Opens tomorrow. Until April 6
The year was 1991. A Toyota Land Cruiser set out on a 67km journey up the Junda Forest Road (郡大林道) toward an old loggers’ camp, at which point the hikers inside would get out and begin their ascent of Jade Mountain (玉山). Little did they know, they would be the last group of hikers to ever enjoy this shortcut into the mountains. An approaching typhoon soon wiped out the road behind them, trapping the vehicle on the mountain and forever changing the approach to Jade Mountain. THE CONTEMPORARY ROUTE Nowadays, the approach to Jade Mountain from the north side takes an
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and