The graffiti artist known as Reach will cover the walls inside Taipei Main Station with colorful designs and geometric shapes tomorrow afternoon in a show called Reach All City Tour (環島塗鴉計畫), organized by Jil Wu Art (懿能藝術館). Reach has held live paintings throughout Europe, China and Japan and is working on bringing Taiwanese graffiti art to the forefront of the world stage. According to his Web site, Reach “applies a breezy attitude” as he pieces together “the dribs and drabs of life.”
■ Taipei Main Station (台北車站區域), 49, Zhongxiao W Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市忠孝西路一段49號), tel Wang Ya-ching (王雅青): 0972-811-473. E-mail: ching@jilwu.com
■ Tomorrow at 1:30pm
Photo courtesy of A Gallery
Munich may be known for Oktoberfest, but the Bavarian beer-drinking city also boasts a thriving contemporary arts scene. Aki Gallery brings a bit of Munich to Taipei with Munich Contemporary Art (當代慕尼黑). Consisting of works by nine Munich-based artists, the exhibition includes portraits, still life and a splash of pop art. Cheon Ji-yun’s paintings depict women tied up with and dangling from rope, BDSM-style. Eva Blanche makes inanimate objects like chandeliers and umbrellas come to life with popping colors and cheerful patterns and her portraits are done in much of the same style. On the other end of the spectrum, Johanna Strobel makes even black and grey hues seem cheerful in her paintings of plants.
■ Aki Gallery (也趣藝廊), 141 Minzu W Rd, Taipei City (台北市民族西路141號), tel: (02) 2599-1171. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6:30pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until April 26
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
Evidently, not everyone finds love in the most romantic city in the world. Living in Paris for more than four years, young artist Huang Pin-ling (黃品玲) says that most of her time there was marked by loneliness. This feeling pervades her abstract oil paintings of natural landscapes, which have a deeply reflective quality achieved through sleepy hues of grey and turquoise. In other words, they evoke a more introspective and solidarity side of travel and living abroad. Huang’s artwork is currently on display at A Gallery in an exhibition entitled Inner Land (於這一方).
■ A Gallery (當代一畫廊), 22, Alley 36, Lane 147, Xinyi Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市信義路三段147巷36弄22號), tel: (02) 2702-3327. Open Mondays to Saturdays from 10am to 6pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until May 16
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
From being a sumptuous delicacy to providing scaffolding for buildings, bamboo is a versatile plant. Air force pilot-turned-artist Yu Wen-fu (游文富) uses feather and bamboo to construct the installations for his latest exhibition at Taipei’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Feather Dream and Bamboo Quest (兩個習). Yu wishes to transport viewers to a simpler time when all that mattered was enjoying nature’s bounty. The exhibition is meant to have a calming and inspirational effect on viewers, so if you’re suffering from writer’s block or just need a break from your cubicle, this is the place to unwind.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (台北當代藝術館, MOCA), 39 Chang-an 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
■ Until May 17
The National Museum of History currently has a solid lineup of exhibitions. The Exhibition of Yeh Min-rui’s Watercolor Paintings (葉敏瑞水彩畫展) boasts an exhaustive collection of Yeh Min-rui’s (葉敏瑞) calm and expressionistic watercolor depictions of Taiwan’s natural scenery, such as rice field and lotus ponds. Precision defines the 75-year-old artist’s work. Each brush stroke is meticulously thought out to create texture and depth, yet there is also a dream-like quality present in all of them. Yeh’s paintings of iconic places like Jiufen’s old street manages to be whimsical and realistic at the same time.
Whoever said “diamonds are a girl’s best friend” was not very familiar with Chinese empresses. Since the Shang Dynasty, gold and silver vessels were seen by the nobility as status symbols. The National Museum of History has a stunning exhibition of antique vessels, utensils and jewelry spanning the different dynasties. Golden Blossom on Gemmed Treasures: Gem-Inlaid Gilt Filigree Collection from Hui Fung-ge (寶鈿金花-惠風閣金銀器展) shows the evolution of the different uses of gold and silver. What started out as primarily for practical usage grew to encompass more ornamental and elaborate purposes. The craftsmanship is truly amazing — delicate figures such as phoenixes and peonies are carved onto gold filigrees and each tiny detail is clearly defined. If only life was still that glamorous.
■ National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館), 49 Nanhai Rd, Taipei City (台北市南海路49號), tel: (02) 2361-0270. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Yeh Min-rui exhibition is until May 3. Golden Blossom exhibition is until May 31
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