Taro Komiya himself is the main attraction of Living Room: Virtual Japan. The solo exhibition, located in the artist’s living quarters at Treasure Hill Artist Village, prominently features Komiya folding his laundry, enjoying meals, reading literature and looking at pages on the Internet, in what he calls a careful performance of the “Japanese lifestyle” in rooms furnished with “Japanese-style” objects. Some behaviors and objects are part of his actual daily routine, while others were created for the exhibition. In this gallery space, Komiya’s imaginary Japanese life coincides with his real Japanese life, raising an open question about cultural authenticity and how much that matters to an art audience.
■ Treasure Hill Artist Village (寶藏巖國際藝術村), 2, Alley 14, Ln 230, Dingzhou Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市汀州路三段230巷14弄2號), tel: (02) 2364-5313. Open Tuesday to Sundays from 11am to 6pm, closed Mondays and Wednesdays
■ Until Dec. 21
Photo courtesy of Sybille Nuemeyer
Children’s NPM Digital Playground (故宮國寶童樂趣) is a free show of artifact-inspired interactive art at Songshan District’s Feng-tian Temple (奉天宮). One exhibit, titled “Painting and Calligraphy Magnifier,” uses high-resolution imagery and touch technology to allow children to play with 15 fragile historic scrolls from the National Palace Museum (NPM). “Adventure around the Universe,” an immersive theater, offers a look at the world according to Jesuit cartographer Ferdinand Verbiest and his friend the Kangxi Emperor. The show is curated by the NPM and aimed at families with young children. For more information, visit theme.npm.edu.tw/exh103/SongshanFeng-TianTemple/ch/ch00.html
■ Feng-tian Temple (奉天宮), 12, Ln 221, Fude St, Taipei City (臺北市福德街221巷12號), tel: (02) 2881-2021. Open daily from 9:30am to 5:30pm, closed on Mondays. Free admission
■ Until March 15
Photo Courtesy of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts
Critically acclaimed artist Vick Wang (王世偉) presents Panorama of Inner Journey (水生相), an intriguing digital tour of a city. Projected on a 360-degree theater screen, the titular art video is a trip to the corporate workplace, the home and other sites within a densely packed concrete metropolis. As the city goes through visual changes — of birth, expansion, decline and reconstruction — stories of its inhabitants are told through superimposed words and animated sequences. Wang uses infrared sensors to track audience members, allowing them to activate real-time film editing by walking inside the theater. The result is an intimate and unique experience of the city for every viewer. Panorama of Inner Journey took four years to develop and is a winner of this year’s Digital Art Creation Competition, which is held annually by the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立臺灣美術館).
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, 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 Jan. 11
Photo Courtesy of Yingge Ceramics Museum
Asako Tanaka makes her solo debut in Taipei with Travel (旅行), a portfolio of 144 photographs, silkscreen prints and 3D pieces based on common objects found during her travels. The objects — such as a lamp, flamingo lawn ornaments, a peeled apple — are shot close-up and imaginatively, providing a bizarre way to perceive ordinary things.
■ 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
■ Until Dec. 7
Great Talents, Great Scope: A Cross-field Exhibition of Vessel Art (大器非凡: 容器.藝術.跨界) spotlights the contemporary Taiwanese vessel. The ancient art form of the vessel is one of the most experimental yet marketable sectors of ceramics today. This show brings together some of its top artists, like Cho Ming-shun (卓銘順) with sculpturesque tea ware, and Li Ting-fang (利庭芳) with Landscapes (山水) — wall-hung glazed blocks that hold flowers and form an abstract landscape. Also featured are interdisciplinary collaborations between local ceramicists and the Riverbed Theatre, a musician and an architect. For more information, visit exhibition.ceramics.ntpc.gov.tw/vesselart/
■ 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. Free admission
■ Until March 8
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
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
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