Award-winning photojournalist Richard Kao (高政全) specializes in humanistic photography and portraits of street culture, particularly of young protesters, graffiti artists, street dancers and the frequenters of Taipei nightlife. His new solo exhibition The new generation, 新束代) brings together 52 photographs of young adults born around 1990. Featuring iconic Taipei backdrops and labeled after letters of the English alphabet, each image records faces of an integral though sometimes undecipherable component of the urban infrastructure. For the photographer, who is approaching 40 years old, the series was a way to seek dialogue with today’s young adults and a form of emotional relief, according to the gallery notes. Kao, formerly of China Times (中國時報) and now of Ming Weekly (明周), is winner of the 2010 Taihai Press Photo Contest for arts and culture and the 22nd Vivian Wu (吳舜文) award for photojournalism.
■ Douchanglee Art Space (台北中山概念店藝文空間), 1, Ln 16, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市中山北路二段16巷1號), tel: (02) 2581-9866. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 8pm, closed on Mondays
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 2pm. Until Dec. 14
Photo courtesy: Soka Art Center
Earth (此地) is a solo exhibition by Singaporean artist Ho Tzu-nyen (何子彥), who is known for smart, crafted films that expose the apparatus of cinema, sometimes by using highly artificial landscapes or by making the crew and lighting a key element of the action. In Taipei, Ho is showing three of his signature art videos: Earth, Newton and Gould, which riff on the ideas of Caravaggio, Isaac Newton and Glenn Gould, respectively. The exhibition includes an artist’s talk tomorrow at 1pm.
■ Project Fulfill Art Space (就在藝術空間), 2, Alley 45, Ln 147, Xinyi Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市信義路三段147巷45弄2號), tel: (02) 2707-6942. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm
■ Until Nov. 26
Photo courtesy: Douchanglee Art Space
The Youth (這青春) is a solo exhibition of embroidery by Tsai Shu-hui (蔡淑惠), her first in 15 years. Tsai is a US-trained Taiwanese artist who created large socio-politically-inflected exhibitions in the 1990s and gradually withdrew from the public eye during her struggles with schizophrenia. The new show brings together 24 pieces that date between 1999 and the present: traditional thread embroidery that incorporates materials such as beads, prints and in one piece, the artist’s hair. In contrast to previous exhibitions, this one is small and distinctly personal, featuring images of everyday objects and fragments of a woman’s body.
■ Art window at the 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
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Dec. 14
Yuan Goang-ming (袁廣鳴) presents videos, photography and a kinetic installation on the concept of the dwelling at solo show An Uncanny Tomorrow (不舒適的明日). Dwelling, a video work set in the living room of a middle-class household, draws from the work of German philosopher Martin Heidegger to investigate what makes a peaceful home. In other works, Yuan uses themes from cross-strait affairs and the controversy over Taiwan’s nuclear power plants, ultimately to encourage viewers to re-examine the realities within their dwelling. Born in Taipei in 1965, Yuan is a pioneer of video art and represented Taiwan at the 50th Venice Biennale.
■ TKG+ 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 6:30pm. Until Nov. 30
Bloom (綻放) is the latest solo show by famed ballpoint-pen artist Tzeng Yong-ning (曾雍甯) of Changhua County. Tzeng is showing his freshly-completed Bloom and Autumn series which consist of 18 landscapes of imaginary flora in vivid colors. Drawn in laboriously line by line with ballpoint pen, the blocks of color indicate piles of mountains and trails that echo the forms of traditional Chinese landscape paintings.
■ Soka Art Center (索卡藝術中心), 2F, 57, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段57號2樓), tel: (02) 2570-0390. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 9pm
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 4pm. Until Dec. 14
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
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern