Fantasy Ice World (台北冰雪世界) is in Taipei with ice sculptures imported from the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in China: the Taj Mahal, Leaning Tower of Pisa and other Wonders of the World preserved at the parking lot of the Nangang Exhibition Hall at negative 18 degrees Celsius. The 15-year-old festival offers snow tubes for use on a 70-meter light-up ice slide, as well as assorted anime sculptures by Taiwan’s SOFA Studio (首映創意) and Gamania (遊戲橘子).
■ Parking lot of Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall (台北南港展覽館), Ln 105, Jingmao 2nd Rd, Taipei(台北市經貿二路105巷), tel: (02) 8252-2785, daily from 10am to 9pm. Tickets available at www.ticket.com.tw. General admission: NT$380
■ Until April 25
Photo courtesy of Bluerider Art
In Formosa Erased (富而謀殺), Huang Ming-chu (黃銘祝) uses video, installations and paintings to take on capitalism and its effects on Taiwan’s society and natural environment. The critiques in the pieces are explicit and leave little room for alternate interpretation: Vision Possessed (眸界), a 3D animation, depicts human materialism wrecking a city made of recycled wood. In Tower of Babel (巴別塔), Huang suggests resource exchange as a way to curb the rampant buildup of pride and materialism, as symbolized by the tower. This interactive installation features a selection of dolls that viewers are free to take, in exchange for dropping off an unwanted toy from home.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA, Taipei), 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: free
■ Opens tomorrow. Until March 23
Photo courtesy of MOCA, Taipei
A koala sipping bottled water held by a fireman is the centerpiece at Could You Give Me Some Water? (給我一杯水), Hong Kong artist Eunice Cheung Wai Man’s (張惠文) solo exhibition in Taipei. In her latest collection, each animal subject is human-like yet natural and based on real life — the koala is drawn from an Associated Press photo taken after a wildfire in Australia. Cheung is an acclaimed ink painter who works with gongpi (工筆), a traditional technique that draws lines with an architectural precision and minimal variation.
■ Bluerider Art, 9F, 25-1, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei (北市仁愛路四段25-1號9樓), tel: (02) 2752-2238. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 6pm
■ Opens on Sunday, reception tomorrow from 3pm to 5pm. Until March 26
Photo courtesy of Fantasy Ice World
Taiwanese contemporary art pioneer Yao Jui-chung (姚瑞中) has made his career dealing with the complex legacies of colonialism and pressing public issues through photography and installations. At Good Times (好時光), he turns to treat a private matter. This latest show is a series of landscape paintings based on locations in the Scottish Highlands; they are rendered in fine-tipped ink pen, as a salute to his father. The elder Yao, who the artist idolized, was a traditional ink painter who held solo exhibitions that few attended.
■ Tina Keng Gallery (耿畫廊), 15, Ln 548, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei (台北市瑞光路548巷15號), tel: (02) 2659-0798. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 10am to 7pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until March 4
Brick art — clay bricks carved or stamped with pictures — emerged during the China’s Han (漢) dynasty as a favored way to adorn tombs. During this period, the horse was particularly beloved, cultivated and integrated into everyday life. At Galloping Han Horses (漢馬奔騰), the National Museum of History presents antique bricks bearing tiny and surprisingly sophisticated action scenes, such as a horse pulling a chariot or leading a hunt, which act as records of how the beast of burden was viewed in traditional Han society.
■ 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 May 4
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
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
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