After Art Taipei’s successful run last month, Art Kaohsiung (高雄駁二藝術博覽會) kicks off today for the second year in a row at Pier-2 Art Center and the Chateau de Chine Hotel. Taipei galleries comprise the majority of the 92 galleries participating from around Asia. Liang Gallery (尊彩藝術中心) showcases quirky and colorful artwork from Taiwanese artists who have jettisoned new mediums and art styles from 1927 to the present day — from Yang San-lang’s (楊三郎) impressionistic landscape paintings of his travels around the world to Tsai Chieh-hsin’s (蔡潔莘) whimsical pulp sculptures dyed in rainbow colors. Cafe Showroom provides a good dose of abstract contemporary art created by young artists like Tania Tsong de Opazo, whose use of distorted shapes and angles sync well with the scrappy, mismatched ambiance of Pier-2’s warehouses.
■ Pier-2 Art Center (駁二藝術特區), 1 Dayong Rd, Greater Kaohsiung (高雄市大勇路1號), tel: (07) 228-8936; Chateau de Chine Hotel (翰品酒店), 43, Daren Rd, Greater Kaohsiung (高雄市大仁路43號), tel: (07) 521-7388. Art Kaohsiung is open today and tomorrow from 11am to 7pm and Sunday from 11am to 6pm
■ Until Sunday
Photo Courtesy of Art Issue Projects
RT_sampler is an interactive, participatory cross-stitch project devised by Australian artist Claire Bushby. Started in 2012, the idea was to examine how individuals use social media platforms to hash out their personal musings. Participants simply screenshot a tweet and cross stitch it — and it’s amusing to see how much people can overshare in under 140 characters. Some of these cross-stitches are currently on display at Treasure Hill Artist Village where Bushby also held cross-stitch workshops.
■ Treasure Hill Artist Village, Gallery 13 (寶藏巖國際藝術村13號展間), 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. 18
Photo Courtesy of the National Palace Museum
Away from the Long Night (遠離長夜) is an exhibition by Shi Jin-hua (石晉華), Song Dong (宋冬), Yee I-Lann (于一蘭) and Yin Xiuzhen (尹秀珍) which collectively explores the different, contrasting relationships between the self and society. Scrambled words, body parts and second-hand clothing are common motifs in all of the artists’ work. A diabetic since age 17, the Penghu-born Shi’s obsession with scales and measurements, as well as his quest to seek scientific ways to quantify human emotion is evident in his work. On display are photos captured from his performance piece, the Hugging Project where the artist hugged other resident artists at New York’s MOMA PS1 and got them to record on his arm where their fingertips touched his arm.
■ Mind Set Art Center (安卓藝術), 16-1, Xinsheng S Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市新生南路三段16-1號), tel: (02) 2365-6008. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 2pm to 6pm
■ Until Dec. 31
Photo Courtesy of Eslite Gallery
Wu I-Chien’s (吳怡蒨) collages may seem minimalistic, but her process in creating them is painstaking and methodological. The mixing and layering of paint and found objects parallels human behavior being multilayered and multidimensional — what you see on the surface is not what you get. On another dimension, the layering is also representative of how we live in an era of information overload — too much to information process and a lack of filtering systems to process it. Wu’s collages are on display at Art Issue Projects in the aptly-named solo exhibition, Reiterate (再敘述).
■ Art Issue Projects (藝術計劃), 32, Ln 407, Tiding Blvd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市堤頂大道二段407巷32號), tel: (02) 2659-7737. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Jan 14
A few years ago, Chinese artist Liu Xiao-dong (劉小東) visited Indonesia and was deeply stuck by the obvious displays of wealth alongside poverty in a country coming to grips with its history of violence against ethnic Chinese. Although people may choose to forget, Liu believes that memory is preserved in nature through trees and plants. His paintings of fallen coconuts looking like skulls, as well as portraits of high society women in gowns and big hairdos, amongst others, are on display starting tomorrow at Taipei’s Eslite Gallery in an exhibition entitled Liu Xiao-dong in Indonesia (劉小東在印度尼西亞).
■ Eslite Gallery (誠品畫廊), 5F, 11 Songgao Rd, Taipei City (台北市松高路11號5樓), tel: (02) 8789-3388. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Jan. 18
The sleepy former British tea merchant warehouse by the Tamsui river which was recently revamped into the bustling Tamsui Cultural Park earlier this year is currently showcasing the Miniature Chinese Dough Art Exhibition (中華捏麵人藝術特展). Organized by the Chinese Global Culture Company, the exhibition consists of miniature figurines made out of dough, constructed to resemble scenes from the bygone days of Chinese hutongs and imperial palaces. The lifelike details of each figurine brings out the beauty of the declining art, resonating with the adage that good things come in tiny packages.
■ Tamsui Cultural Park (淡水文化園區) 22, Bitou Street, New Taipei City (新北市鼻頭街22號), tel: (02) 2622-1928. Open daily from 9am to 6pm
■ Until Feb. 28
Hidden Talent (藏鋒) is a special exhibition at the National Palace Museum featuring the works of the late Chen Cheng-po (陳澄波). The artist was shot dead in public in his native Chiayi by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) military during the 228 Incident in 1947. Before his death, Chen was a prolific artist. Having lived in Shanghai where he picked up the skills of traditional Chinese brush painting, Chen used those skills to paint impressionistic nature scenes of his beloved Chiayi, as well as abstract portraitures of nude women.
■ National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院), 221 Zhishan Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市至善路二段221號), tel: (02) 2881-2021. Open daily from 9am to 5pm. Regular admission: NT$250
■ Until March 30
Jason Han says that the e-arrival card spat between South Korea and Taiwan shows that Seoul is signaling adherence to its “one-China” policy, while Taiwan’s response reflects a reciprocal approach. “Attempts to alter the diplomatic status quo often lead to tit-for-tat responses,” the analyst on international affairs tells the Taipei Times, adding that Taiwan may become more cautious in its dealings with South Korea going forward. Taipei has called on Seoul to correct its electronic entry system, which currently lists Taiwan as “China (Taiwan),” warning that reciprocal measures may follow if the wording is not changed before March 31. As of yesterday,
The Portuguese never established a presence on Taiwan, but they must have traded with the indigenous people because later traders reported that the locals referred to parts of deer using Portuguese words. What goods might the Portuguese have offered their indigenous trade partners? Among them must have been slaves, for the Portuguese dealt slaves across Asia. Though we often speak of “Portuguese” ships, imagining them as picturesque vessels manned by pointy-bearded Iberians, in Asia Portuguese shipping between local destinations was crewed by Asian seamen, with a handful of white or Eurasian officers. “Even the great carracks of 1,000-2,000 tons which plied
It’s only half the size of its more famous counterpart in Taipei, but the Botanical Garden of the National Museum of Nature Science (NMNS, 國立自然科學博物館植物園) is surely one of urban Taiwan’s most inviting green spaces. Covering 4.5 hectares immediately northeast of the government-run museum in Taichung’s North District (北區), the garden features more than 700 plant species, many of which are labeled in Chinese but not in English. Since its establishment in 1999, the site’s managers have done their best to replicate a number of native ecosystems, dividing the site into eight areas. The name of the Coral Atoll Zone might
Nuclear power is getting a second look in Southeast Asia as countries prepare to meet surging energy demand as they vie for artificial intelligence-focused data centers. Several Southeast Asian nations are reviving mothballed nuclear plans and setting ambitious targets and nearly half of the region could, if they pursue those goals, have nuclear energy in the 2030s. Even countries without current plans have signaled their interest. Southeast Asia has never produced a single watt of nuclear energy, despite long-held atomic ambitions. But that may soon change as pressure mounts to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change, while meeting growing power needs. The
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