Liang Shih-yu (梁世佑), aka Rainreader Liang , ponders video games and their role in a recent stabbing spree on Taipei’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT). His digital art show Who Pulled the Trigger: The Connotation and Context of Violent Video Games (誰來扣板機: 暴力電玩遊戲的內涵與理路) includes a short film, roundtable talks and a curated gaming experience that gives an overview of the industry’s history and controversies. Criticism against video-gaming arose after reports that MRT stabbing suspect Cheng Chieh (鄭捷) spent his free time on violent fiction and video games. “The exhibition conveys that the very player, rather than the game setting, makes the final decision of ‘shoot or not shoot,’” Liang says.
■ Digital Art Center (台北數位藝術中心), 180 Fuhua Rd, Taipei City (台北市福華路180號), tel: (02) 7736-0708. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Free admission
■ Until Sept. 15
Photo courtesy of KMFA
The Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (高雄市立美術館) invited 20 Taiwanese poets to write about iconic paintings and other visual art. At Marvelous Encounters in the Collection: On Wings of Music and Poetry (典藏奇遇記:藝享天開詩與樂), Lin Feng-chu’s (林鳳珠) lyrical Hoklo poem is shown with Chen Ruey-fu’s (陳瑞福) Fish Market (魚市). Sisters, by Chen Chiu-pai (陳秋白), provides the textual backdrop to Lin Bo-liang’s (林柏樑) portrait series on a red-light district. Select art is also displayed with original music compositions, film and commissioned recorded readings.
■ Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (KMFA), 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 Sept. 9
Photo courtesy of Eslite Gallery
Ho Ming-Kuei (何明桂) creates scenes based on fantasies and memory at As Dream, As Illusion (如夢如幻). Ho’s video works and other media are high-definition landscapes inspired by descriptions of psychical space — a painful personal memory, a recalled dream and a friend’s vivid account of a UFO sighting.
■ Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館), 1 Xueyuan Rd, Taipei City (台北市學園路1號), tel: (02) 2896-1000 Ext. 2415. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm
■ Until Sept. 14
The Sociology of Oneself (自我的社會學) features six artists from China who address themes from their lives. Contemporary Chinese artists don’t struggle against totalitarianism, but engage instead with a complex web of power and capitalism that they themselves are part of, writes curator Zhu Zhu (朱朱), winner of the 2011 CCAA (Chinese Contemporary Art Award, 中國當代藝術獎) for Critics. In this showcase of film, paintings and other media, artists deal with counterfeit goods, consumerism and industrial progress, which in Cheng Ran (程然) video installation The Fire and the Tree is linked to a form of stagnation.
■ Eslite Gallery (誠品畫廊), 5F, 11 Songgao Rd, Taipei City (台北市松高路11號5樓), tel: (02) 8789-3388 X1588. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Sept. 21
Chinese fine artist Ying Tianqi (應天齊) displays 15 recent works at The Wall of Enigmas (迷牆). Ying paints and presses materials onto large boards so that they resemble the cracked walls of ancient ruins. The faux-preserved walls are a lament over the erosion of the physical sculptures along with their space and time.
■ Asia Art Center II (亞洲藝術中心二館), 93, Lequn 2nd Road, Taipei City (台北市樂群二路93號), tel: (02) 8502-7939. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6:30pm
■ Until Sunday
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
A sultry sea mist blankets New Taipei City as I pedal from Tamsui District (淡水) up the coast. This might not be ideal beach weather but it’s fine weather for riding –– the cloud cover sheltering arms and legs from the scourge of the subtropical sun. The dedicated bikeway that connects downtown Taipei with the west coast of New Taipei City ends just past Fisherman’s Wharf (漁人碼頭) so I’m not the only cyclist jostling for space among the SUVs and scooters on National Highway No. 2. Many Lycra-clad enthusiasts are racing north on stealthy Giants and Meridas, rounding “the crown coast”
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