In Exploring the Media Boundaries (媒界探勘), seven artists use digital technology to offer immersive installations and experiences of augmented reality. Bram Snijders and Carolien Teunisse from the Netherlands present Re:, a 360-degree installation featuring a projector that can project light on itself. In Exploded Views 2.0, Marnix de Nijs analyzes the GPS tags of photos on Flickr and other sharing sites, converting the most photographed locations into 3D, and building the world as it’s represented on the Web. This exhibition is staged in collaboration with the V2_Institute for the Unstable Media, a center for art and technology based in Rotterdam.
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (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 August 17
Photo Courtesy of TFAM
Discard is a solo exhibition by acclaimed Shanghai-based porcelain sculptor Liu Jianhua (劉建華). Liu brings five small-scale pieces and the titular work Discard (遺棄), a simulation excavation site. Discard features pits filled with colorful heaps of counterfeit antiques and pale replicas of familiar utensils — perverse porcelains that tell a story of materialism gone wrong, with all of its sweet comforts. Born in Jian (吉安) in 1962, Liu participated in the Venice Biennale at the China Pavilion in 2003, showing porcelain replicas of daily objects that prioritize appearance and symbolism over function.
■ TKG+ Projects Taipei, B1, Ln 548, 15, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路548巷15號B1), tel: (02) 2659-0798, open Tuesdays to Fridays from 10am to 7pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 4:30pm. Until July 20
Photo Courtesy of VT Artsalon
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum (臺北市立美術館) presents a retrospective on the life and work of the late abstract expressionist Chen Cheng-hsiung (陳正雄). Around 80 paintings, catalogues, literature and documentary films illustrate Chen’s career from his early semi-representational works to his exuberant forays into pure abstraction at Chen Chen-hsiung: A Retrospective (陳正雄回顧展). Born 1935 in Taipei, Chen became one of the leading abstract painters of Asia, working out of Taiwan throughout his career and exhibiting overseas. In 2001, he was recipient of the Florence Biennale’s “Lorenzo il Magnifico” Lifetime Achievement Award.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 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
■ Until August 17
Eating Wind (吃風) brings together 13 Malaysia-based artists who respond to Malaysia’s recent initiatives to boost art tourism, in which visitors fly in to attend local art festivals, concerts, wine events and museum tours. Curated by Hoo Fan Chon of Malaysia and ##Chen Yi-chiu (陳依秋) of Taiwan, the pieces depict personal notions about traveling on holiday (which in Malaysia is colloquially called “eating wind”) and address the repercussions of “eating wind” on both the traveler and the host country. This show was first staged in Penang and is winner of VT Art Salon’s (非常廟藝文空間) annual open call to curators.
■ VT Artsalon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, 17, Ln 56, Xinsheng 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 through Fridays from 11:30am to 7pm, Saturdays from 1:30pm to 9pm, closed Sundays and Mondays
■ Curator’s talk tomorrow at 5pm, opening reception at 7pm. Until July 19
At Natural to Next Natural (自然而然), 17 teams of Dutch and Taiwanese artists present design solutions for four issues: environmental sustainability, war-related suffering, disease and illness and the technological divide. A fifth gallery, themed Biotech, presents innovations in fabrics that harness new biological technology.
■ 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. Free admission
■ Until July 20
The year was 1991. A Toyota Land Cruiser set out on a 67km journey up the Junda Forest Road (郡大林道) toward an old loggers’ camp, at which point the hikers inside would get out and begin their ascent of Jade Mountain (玉山). Little did they know, they would be the last group of hikers to ever enjoy this shortcut into the mountains. An approaching typhoon soon wiped out the road behind them, trapping the vehicle on the mountain and forever changing the approach to Jade Mountain. THE CONTEMPORARY ROUTE Nowadays, the approach to Jade Mountain from the north side takes an
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and