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
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
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
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located