Jeju Teddy Bear Museum (韓國濟州泰迪熊特展), an offbeat crowd-puller based in South Korea, is in Taipei for the first time on a world tour. It’s considered the largest collection of its kind, featuring costumed teddies framed in historic events and popular bears from around the world, like the UK’s Paddington Bear and American Care Bears. For the lovers of glamor among teddy aficionados, the museum has delights like extra-special Steiff heirlooms with silk and mohair for fur, a 24-carat gold nose and twinkling blue sapphires for eyes.
■ Songshan Cultural and Creative Park (松山文創園區), 133, Guangfu S Rd, Taipei (台北市光復南路133號), tel: (02) 2765-1388, open daily from 10am to 6pm, regular admission: NT$280
■ Until April 20
Photo Courtesy of NTMOFA
Lee Chen-cheng (李鎮成) is a leading Taiwanese calligrapher famous for mastering the flying white (飛白書法) technique, in which he maneuvers a relatively dry brush tip so that its thin hairs separate and allow white blank space within each black brushstroke. At his solo show Expression of Lines (線相), Lee is showing his latest calligraphy in this classic style, as well as pieces from a more experimental collection. These are “three-dimensional calligraphy” — steel, stone or copper sculptures that express the form and meaning of traditional Chinese characters.
■ Gallery 201, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMOFA, 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
■ Opens tomorrow. Until April 27
Photo Courtesy of KMFA
With My , Trade Your: Part II is a group show that documents an art swap by current artists-in-residence of Taipei Artists Village. At the gallery, each participant exchanges a work of art with a peer. Each also offers a written explanation that makes a case for the desired trade, stating what the other artist’s work means to them and what their work can offer in return. The show is a record of one artist’s simple appreciation for another’s, as well as of the complexities involved when one artist appraises his contemporaries for value.
■ Barry Room (百里廳), Taipei Artist Village (台北國際藝術村百里廳), 7 Beiping E Rd, Taipei (台北市北平東路7號), tel: (02) 3393-7377. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 9pm
■ Until March 9
Photo Courtesy of Kuang Hong Arts
Man Ray, currently on view at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, displays 156 works by Emmanuel Radnitzky, aka Man Ray, an American oil painter and avant-garde photographer. Born in 1890 in Pennsylvania, Man Ray came of age professionally in France, where he earned acclaim as a photographer and produced portraits for local luminaries including Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and Salvador Dali. As a photographer, he adopted the fantastical aesthetics of the Dadaists and Surrealists, favoring darkroom techniques like solarization — overexposing the negative in the camera so dark areas appear light, and what should be light appears dark. Man Ray also pioneered a method of photography that art critic Tristan Tzara dubbed “rayograms.” In this method, he placed eggs, thumb tacks and other objects on photosensitive paper and gradually exposed them to light, creating “camera-less” photos with a dreamlike and impressionistic quality.
■ Galleries 101-103 at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (KMFA, 高雄市立美術館), 80 Meishuguan Rd, Greater Kaohsiung (高雄市美術館路80號), tel: (07) 555-0331. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm. Admission: Free
■ Until May 25
Outline (廓) is the solo debut of young installation artist Hsu Chiao-yen (許喬彥). Using objects like charcoal, cardboard boxes and plastic bags, Hsu brings abstractions into the spatial dimension, abstractions like the concept of “illegal space” or his own memories. In The Molding Room (塑室), he reproduces the estrangement and familiarity he simultaneously feels for his home. Born 1990 in Chiayi, Hsu received honorable mention in the 2012 New Taipei City Rising Artist Awards (新北市創作新人獎) and was nominated for the Taoyuan County Creation Award (桃源創作獎) last year.
■ Project Fulfill Art Space (就在藝術空間), 2, Alley 45, Ln 147, Xinyi Rd Sec 3, Taipei (台北市信義路三段147巷45弄2號), tel: (02) 2707-6942. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 7pm
■ Until March 16
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
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