Magical Limbo (喚.魅) is a solo exhibition by Wu Tien-chang (吳天章), known as Taiwan’s first artist to promote the abolishment of martial law and for developing photography inspired by taike (台客) aesthetics. Since 2010, Wu has worked with video, experimenting with long takes, skip framing and other techniques to create “fake-y visuals” — images of reality that are so risky or absurd that viewers prefer to believe it is false. His surreal film Unforgettable (難忘的愛人), set against a Teresa Teng (鄧麗君) folk song of the same name, is an exploration of what makes a lover unforgettable, a complicated blend that includes not just romance but also pain and the taboo.
■ MOCA Studio Underground (地下實驗), Zhongshan Metro Mall B30/32/34, near Exit R9 (捷運中山地下街,近R9出口), tel: (02) 2552-3721. Free admission
■ Opens tomorrow. Until May 4
Photo courtesy of NTMOFA
At solo show Short Fiction (短篇小說), Liu Chih-Hung (劉致宏) presents the concluding instalment to a series of rapidly-produced paintings depicting his experiences as an army conscript. Liu’s Short Fiction series include a grand, lonely view of a bathroom on Christmas Day, as well as other lows, highs, quotidian and dramatic moments in the life of a young freelance artist in Taipei.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM, 台北市立美術館), 181, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市中山北路三段181號), tel: (02) 2595-7656. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:30am to 5:30pm and until 8:30pm on Saturdays. Admission: NT$30
■ Opens tomorrow. Until May 18
Photo courtesy of MOCA, Taipei
The cobbled streets of Paris and Taipei’s scooter-lined roads come together in solo exhibition Time in Between (時光間). Chen Yun-ju’s (陳韻如) filmed 24 Taiwanese walking in Paris and fused the footage to scenes of Taipei. These composite animations have been installed in a 360-degree theater, to immerse the viewer in the peculiar environment and to encourage continual questioning: “In this moment, am I in a pure and present moment in Paris, or is this accompanied by a complex accumulation of past experiences?”
■ Gallery 108, 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 May 25
Master of Teapot (製壺達人阿萬師) is a solo exhibition of hand-made teapots by Tseng Tsai-one (曾財萬), an acclaimed potter in Taiwan’s ceramics capital of Yingge (鶯歌). Born in 1932, Tsai began working at the Yingge’s kilns when he was 13 and today runs the ceramics club of Wan-chia (萬佳陶藝社), which specializes in hand-molded and intricately carved clay pots.
■ Yingge Ceramics Museum (鶯歌陶瓷博物館), 200 Wenhua Rd, New Taipei City (新北市文化路200號), tel: (02) 8677-2727, open Mondays to Fridays from 9:30am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 9:30am to 6pm, closed first Monday of the month
■ Until April 20
The Animal Awakens (獸醒) features Tsai Yi-ju’s (蔡宜儒) oil paintings about the relationship between beast and man. Some are fancifully theatrical, like the dinosaur who crumbles an airplane, while others depict bloody scenes of mutual hatred and the subjugation of one by the other. Tsai is an emerging artist from Taipei best known for work on potted trees and other plants — elegant and sensitive paintings with a preservationist’s message. These animal portraits are a distinct departure, in which Tsai embraces bold colors, a crude finish and outlines of figures that are difficult to distinguish.
■ MOT/Arts, 3F, 22, Fuxing S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市復興南路一段22號3樓), tel: (02) 2778-2908. Open daily from 11am to 8pm
■ Until May 18
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
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