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
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In the aftermath of the 2020 general elections the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was demoralized. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had crushed them in a second landslide in a row, with their presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) winning more votes than any in Taiwan’s history. The KMT did pick up three legislative seats, but the DPP retained an outright majority. To take responsibility for that catastrophic loss, as is customary, party chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) resigned. This would mark the end of an era of how the party operated and the beginning of a new effort at reform, first under