If you’re experiencing post-Lunar New Year celebration withdrawal, then Chiu Kuo-chun’s (邱國峻) exhibition at ArtDoor Gallery is for you. Realm of Escapism and Worship (妄身幻境) is a humorous yet poignant take on the popularization of festivals in Taiwan showing how rituals once performed to honor the Gods are now being turned into tourist spectacles. In his artwork, Chiu intermixes traditional methods of embroidery with digital compositions. The result is quizzical and shocking — a person wearing a Ronald McDonald mask rides on a van with performers donning masks with the faces of characters from ancient legends. The Ronald McDonald mask is barely noticeable at first glance, which is a testament to how the interweaving of pop culture and tradition has evolved into something so natural.
■ ArtDoor Gallery (藝境畫廊) 639, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路639號), tel: (02) 2658-5268. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until March 15
Photo courtesy of ArtDoor Gallery
Opaque windows conceal as much as they reveal — objects may appear blurry but we can still make out what they are if we stare long enough. Nantou County-born artist Lee Chi-hsiang (李吉祥) contends with the theme of illusions in his latest solo exhibition, Giddiness (眼花), which will be on display at Taipei’s Project Fulfill Art Space. Using an analog camera to photograph people and objects behind opaque windows, he makes his viewers wonder if the subject itself is blurry or if his lens is out of focus. Digital photography is too often tampered with or easy to alter and Lee proves that even the simplest technology can produce beguiling results.
■ 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
■ Opens tomorrow. Until April 4
Photo courtesy of Project Fulfill Art Space
The juxtaposition of past and present might be a worn-out trope in art, but South Korean artist Ahn Sung-seok’s screen projections of black-and-white vintage photographs of old monuments shown at their current locations throughout South Korea are simply haunting. Cars whiz around the old pictures which depict battered-down trishaws. The contrast between movement and stillness makes the viewer slow down and think about the artist’s message — which is to remember the past events and people that made the present possible. Space and time converge and the way in which we remember history is put into question. Ahn’s work is currently on display in an exhibition entitled Historical Present (歷史現場) in Taipei’s 1839 Contemporary Gallery.
■ 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 April 5
Photo courtesy of Project Fulfill Art Space
Gestalt Aesthetics (完形美學) might sound like a peculiar name for an art exhibition but don’t let it deter you from viewing this beautifully-curated collection of the works of Tainan-born artist Chen Huei-tung (陳輝東). Held at Taichung’s National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, the exhibition covers roughly 50 years of the artist’s work, from his early impressionistic paintings of hardy fishermen inspired by recollections from his childhood, to portraits of demure nudes and feisty Flamenco dancers. Chen’s subjects exude much mystery and movement, as if each one of them has a hidden story to tell. Even inanimate objects like boats and houses come to life with Chen’s vivid brush strokes and bold colors. This will be Chen’s first solo exhibition in more than 20 years.
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, 2, Wuquan W Rd Sec 1, 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 April 12
Photo courtesy of Project Fulfill Art Space
The works of renowned Japanese avant-garde artist Kusama Yayoi are currently on display at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. Aptly named A Dream I Dreamed (夢我所夢), the touring exhibition which also made stops in Shanghai and Seoul, comprises a sizeable collection of Kusama’s signature psychedelic polka dot paintings and sculptures. There’s pain, anguish and all sorts of upturned emotions present in Kusama’s artwork — the polka dots seem to form a vortex which makes your head spin. Evidently, illness and mental disorder are the ideal ingredients one needs for creating a masterpiece. After a 15-year career in New York from 1957 to 1972, during which she often posed nude with polka dots painted on her body as part of her own installations, Kusama returned to Japan where she voluntarily admitted herself into a psychiatric ward in Tokyo in 1973. Kusama led the life of a semi-recluse, still producing art, poetry and other writings from her quiet studio, before emerging again in recent years to have her artwork earn big bucks at auction.
■ Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (高雄市立美術館 KMFA), 80 Meishuguan Rd, Kaohsiung (高雄市美術館路80號), tel: (07) 555-0331. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm
■ Until May 17
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