French artist Paulo Grangeon’s 1,600 pandas and 200 Formosan black bears are currently at Taipei City Government’s Civic Plaza, where they have braved a week of light rain and some enthusiastic handling. The paper-mache pieces, created in collaboration with World Wildlife Fund and the Taipei City Government, aim to draw notice to the estimated number of pandas (1,600) and black bears (200) remaining in the wild. Next, Pandas on Tour moves on to Liberty Square for a showing from March 14 to 30, and then heads to an auction that benefits local charities. For more information, visit www.pandasworldtour.tw
■ Taipei City Government Civic Plaza (市民廣場), 1 Shifu Rd, Taipei (臺北市市府路1號), tel: (02) 2356-0870. Open daily
■ Until Sunday
Photo courtesy of VT Artsalon
The National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院) is hosting a major retrospective on Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972), a Dutch printmaker famous for his optical illusions. The Enigma of M. C. Escher: Prints from the Israel Museum, Jerusalem brings together all his major works, including Drawing Hands — two hands rising from a sheet of paper and drawing each another — and Waterfall, which shows water winding its way from the bottom of the picture, to the top. The exhibition is organized by six topics Escher treated in his prints. One section, The Human Figure, shows how his depiction of people changed from realistic figures in early works to faceless, stylized and occasionally demonic characters after World War II.
■ Library Building (圖書文獻大樓), National Palace Museum, 221, Zhishan Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市至善路二段221號), tel: (02) 2881-2021. Open daily from 9am to 5pm. General admission: NT$280
■ Until June 2
Photo courtesy of NTMOFA
Just Clowning Around (啊! 那不就好棒棒!) is a solo show of paintings, photography and installation works by Wang Chien-hao (王建浩). Wang is a young artist with a talent for visual puns and jokes, as well as for picking up unlikely moments of humor in ordinary Taiwanese life. His Landscape series is a collection of mini-sitcoms on photographs, including a scene of an empty local restaurant that’s wallpapered with many life-sized Caucasians dining al fresco.
■ VT Artsalon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, 17, Ln 56, Xinsheng N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市新生北路三段56巷17號B1), tel: (02) 2597-2525. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 11:30am to 7pm, Saturdays from 1:30pm to 9pm
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 7pm. Until April 3
Eyes on the Fabric (織布上的眼睛) features weavings by the women of the Truku Aboriginal tribe (太魯閣族), who are recognized as highly skilled weavers. The exhibition includes DIY activities and matches the woven pieces with an introduction to Truku design and daily life. In traditional Truku society, looms are used to create necessities like tablecloths and ceremonial dress, and women are considered prepared to marry only after mastering it. Truku women typically use two methods, twill weaving and plain weaving, to form characteristic designs like colored diamonds over a white base.
■ Shihsanhang Museum of Archaeology (新北市十三行博物館), 200, Museum Rd, Bali Dist, New Taipei City (新北市八里區博物館路200號), tel: (02) 2619-1313. Open daily from 9:30am to 5pm
■ Until April 6
Follow the Lines on a Journey (跟著線條去旅行) is a paean to the line, a foundational element in artistic composition. The exhibition focuses on 13 pieces: photos, oil paintings and mixed media that illustrate inspired uses of the line. The show features guided tours, teacher’s workshops and seminars about how the line can be constructed and deconstructed to express texture, dynamism and emotion. For more information, visit www.ntmofa.gov.tw
■ 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
■ Until Nov. 9
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and