The 40 murals on display at 3D Dark Art (DARK ART 夜光3D藝術展) appear 3D from a fixed point, so that viewers can walk in and, for example, have tea with Mona Lisa, launch a ball of pure energy at an enemy or insert themselves under a bell jar next to a lady vampire. The vampire’s eyes even change color — all pieces feature fluorescent paint or other materials that transform when subjected to black light.
■ Hall 4B at 1914 Huashan Cultural and Creative Park (1914文創園區), Bade Rd Sec 1, Taipei (台北市八德路一段1號), tel: (02) 8732-7976. Open Mondays to Fridays from 10am to 6pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm. Regular admission: NT$280
■ Until March 16
Photo Courtesy of Taiwan Soca Association
The National Palace Museum is currently showing an exhibition that gives viewers a sense of how Han Chinese settlers viewed Taiwan’s Aboriginal peoples during the 18th and 19th centuries. After the Qing (清) court annexed Taiwan in the late 17th century, Han Chinese migrated across the Strait to claim land, encountering the region’s autochthonous people along the way and recording the experience in books, illustrations and other artifacts on display at In Their Footsteps. The exhibition includes rare documents of Aboriginal culture by western visitors such as Scotsman John Thomson, who in 1871 sailed into what is today Greater Kaohsiung and photographed his trip from Liouguei (六龜) to Tainan.
■ National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院圖書文獻大樓), 221 Zhishan Rd Sec 2, Taipei (台北市至善路二段221號), tel: (02) 2881-2021. Open daily from 9am to 5pm. General admission: NT$160
■ Until May 19
Photo Courtesy of Uraku Entertainment Inc.
At Japanese artist Ryuca’s solo show, If You Laugh (如果你笑的話), every oil painting is as cute as a bug, featuring a baby animal or an expressionless doe-eyed child wearing an animal costume. These are loveable ambassadors of kawaii, as well as a sweet release into helplessness against anguish-inducing modern realities. “Children have no defenses against the unreasonableness of society,” writes the artist in gallery notes.
■ Little MOCA (微當代文創), 17, Ln 17, Chengde Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (臺北市承德路一段41巷17號), tel: (02) 2558-1787 Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm
■ Until May 4
Surging Waves (澄海波瀾) is an art exhibition commemorating Chen Cheng-po (陳澄波), a Chiayi-born artist who was publicly executed by the government during the 228 Incident in 1947. Chen was trained in Tokyo and became a prime mover in Taiwan’s modern art scene. His oil painting Qing Liu (清流), which is currently on display in Tainan with other works and never-before-displayed personal items, represented the Republic of China at the 1932 Chicago World’s Fair.
■ Xinying Culture Center (新營文化中心), 23 Zhongzheng Rd Xinying District, Tainan City (臺南市新營區中正路23號), tel: (06) 6321047, open Wednesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm
■ Until March 30
The Taiwan Soka Association (台灣創價學會) is hosting a retrospective show of works by Huang Lei-sheng (黃磊生, 1928-2011), a Chinese watercolor artist famous for painting from nature. Huang traveled across China to scout out locations with exotic flowers, birds and grand mountain peaks. He was a member of the Lingnan School of Painting (嶺南畫派的繪畫藝術), a 20th-century movement that challenged traditional Chinese art by adopting foreign brushwork and aesthetics like Western romanticism and realism.
■ Hsiu-shui Art Center (秀水藝文中心), 61, 2F, Pingan Fifth St, Anxi Village, Xiushui Township, Changhua County (彰化縣秀水鄉安溪村平安五街61號2樓), tel: (04) 763-3643, open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:30am to 5pm
■ Until March 15
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