At solo exhibition Biologist (生物學家), Chang Teng-yuan (張騰遠) presents a post-doomsday Earth. Thousands of years into the future, parrot-biologists have arrived on Earth to study the ruins of human civilization. In color-splashed acrylic pieces, Chang depicts the parrot-biologists’ observations, along with new sustainable life forms they engineer using the finest breeding technology. Born in 1983 in Greater Kaohsiung, Chang completed his MFA at the Graduate Institute of Plastic Arts at the Tainan National University of the Arts.
■ Galerie Grand Siecle (新苑藝術), 17, Alley 51, Ln 12, Bade Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市八德路三段12巷51弄17號), tel: (02) 2578-5630. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm
■ Oct. 12
Photo courtesy of Metaphysical Art Gallery
New Taipei City’s Shihsanhang Museum of Archaeology (新北市十三行博物館) offers a show about bark-cloth craft, an ancient feature of Austronesian societies that still lives on in Taiwan. This exhibition examines the history of bark-cloth, the culture surrounding it, its use in the home, bark cloth fashion, disappearing techniques and new trends.
■ Shihsanhang Museum of Archaeology, 200, Museum Rd, New Taipei City (新北市博物館路200號), tel: (02) 2619-1313. Open daily from 9:30am to 5pm
■ Until Jan. 4
Photo courtesy of Galerie Grand Siecle
One Eye on the Telescope, Two on the Microscope (鏡頭下的『視』界) is a solo photography exhibition by Alex Dorfsman, who inserts artificial objects into natural landscapes to create visual tension and illusions. Dorfsman is a native of Mexico City and winner of the 2011 Purificacion Garcia’s Latin-American Photography Award.
■ 1839 Contemporary Gallery (當代藝廊), B1, 120 Yanji St, Taipei City (台北市延吉街120號B1), tel: (02) 2778-8458. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 8pm
■ Until Oct. 19
Montage! (萌太奇) is a group exhibition dedicated to the cute. It brings together an eclectic crowd including 20th-century Parisian painter Marie Laurencin, Cranium creator Gary Basemen, South Korean comics/animation artist Eddie Kang and Yoshitomo Nara, whose cartoon children are sometimes delicately sweet, at times macabre.
■ Metaphysical Art Gallery (形而上畫廊), 7F, 219, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段219號7樓), tel: (02) 2711-0055. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6:30pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Oct. 31
2014 Creative Taichung (創意臺中) is a fashion exhibition held alongside an expo on cultural and creative product design. Curated by Red Dot Grand Prix winner Leslie Chan (陳永基), the two-part program spotlights prominent designers like Vera Wang (王薇薇), Olivier Green (吳秉叡) from Project Runway and Chou Yu-jui (周育潤). For more information, visit www.2014creativetaichung.com.tw.
■ Fashion exhibition at Calligraphy Greenway (草悟道), Ln 470, Yingcai Rd to Gongyi Rd, Greater Taichung (台中市英才路470巷至公益路段); product design expo at Calligraphy Plaza B1 (草悟廣場B1), 534 Yingcai Rd, Greater Taichung (台中市英才路534號), tel: (04) 2317-9850. Open daily from 9am to 10pm
■ Until Sept. 28
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
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
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
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would