In the age of computers and typing, German artist Lars Koepsel installs a show on handwriting and its special power to transform meaning. Koepsel has copied philosophical texts by hand, layering one line of text over the other on paper. Each copy, on view now at Exercises of Emptiness (行空), isn’t a manuscript but instead a single picture woven thickly with text that is illegible and neutralized of meaning. This exhibition is part of a two-year artists’ exchange between Taipei’s VT Artsalon (非常廟藝文空間) and Germany’s Apartment der Kunst.
■ VT Artsalon, 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
Photo courtesy of Yingge Ceramics Museum
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 7pm
To See LIFE, To See the World (看見生活: 經典人生攝影展) is 134 LIFE magazine snapshots of dramatic and intimate moments of the 20th century, from the first moon landing to scenes of friendship and childbirth. The now-defunct LIFE was a US-based publication and home of memorable images like Alfred Eisenstaedt’s V-J Day in Times Square, a nurse in a sailor’s arms at the end of the Asia-Pacific War. LIFE folded in 1972 but maintains Life.com, one of the Internet’s largest collections of professional photography.
Copyright: Time Inc. All Rights Reserved.
■ Songshan Cultural and Creative Park (松山文創園區), 133, Guangfu S Rd, Taipei City (台北市光復南路133號), tel: (02) 8643-3955, open daily from 10am to 6pm, no entry after 5:30pm. Admission: NT$220
■ Until Sept. 21
To solo exhibition Applied Objects (應用. 物件), Greater Tainan-based potter and professor Fang Po-ching (方柏欽) brings remarkable tea-ware sculptures: vertical trays in the form of geode cross-sections or wind-blasted logs, bearing white enamel cups with the texture of pebbles. Each set is fully functional and strives to expand the creative possibilities of the functional object, in a craft culture that tends to devalue utilitarian vessels.
■ 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. Admission: Free
■ Until Sept. 28
Woodblock printing, an ancient technique used to adorn textiles and reproduce text, has become a thriving contemporary art form in Taiwan. The Progress in Taiwan Modern Printmaking: Woodcut & Its Variations (台灣木版畫現代進行式) compiles valuable woodblock prints to survey developments in the national printmaking industry over the past 10 years. About a hundred works by 40 Taiwanese artists are organized under three themes: pioneers, iconic wood cutters and modern printmaking. This exhibition is held in conjunction with the International Biennial Print Exhibit (國際版畫雙年展), a group show of contemporary wood cutters from 56 countries. For more information about the shows, visit www.ntmofa.gov.tw (English and Chinese).
■ 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 Oct. 26
At Exhibition of Traditional Costumes Dolls (傳統民族服飾娃娃展), master craftsman Chang Tsung-hui (張從惠) is showing handmade dolls dressed in detail-perfect garments of Taiwan’s Aboriginal people and of the Miao (苗族), a minority ethnic group in southern China.
■ National Museum of Prehistory (臺灣史前文化博物館), 1 Museum Rd, Taitung City (台東市博物館路1號), tel: (08) 938-1166, open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm
■ Until Nov. 9
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
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
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s