After graduating with a double degree in physics and engineering, Taiwan-born, Australian-raised Annie Wang Hsiao-wen (王筱雯) worked at a mining company in Australia, but felt that it just wasn’t her calling. Soon after, Wang started painting abstract scenes, utilizing warm colors and earthy hues in order to produce a billowing effect. Wang, who says she draws inspiration from Buddhism and meditation, captures this in her paintings, most of which have a mysterious, transcendental quality. Her latest exhibition, Seek (覓), which is currently on display at Yesart Air Gallery in Taipei, showcases 17 of her newest works.
■ Yesart Air Gallery (意識畫廊), 2F, 48, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 7, Taipei City (台北市中山北路七段48號2樓), tel: (02) 2876-3858. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 2pm to 8pm
■ Until Sept. 15
Photo courtesy of Frees Art Space
German artistic duo Marc Weis and Martin De Mattia, who refer to themselves simply as M+M, have been producing short films together for the last 20 years. Their latest exhibition, Bittersweet Harmony, is set to open at Taipei’s VT Art Salon tomorrow, and will include screenings of their most noted work, 7 days. Filmed over the course of seven years, 7 days chronicles the daily life of a solitary man, emphasizing how he interacts with people. His actions are juxtaposed on two separate screens. There’s one scene where he’s lying in bed with his naked girlfriend and another with his young daughter in her underwear. The dialogue is exactly the same — they’re both asking the actor if he loves them or not — but his tone of voice is discernibly different in each situation (although that doesn’t make it any less disturbing). The exhibition space itself is also important to the artists who see it as part of their “canvas,” where the colors of the walls match with the hues in the film.
■ VT Art Salon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, 47 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街47號B1), tel: (02) 2516-1060. Open Tuesdays through Thursdays from 1:30pm to 9pm, and Fridays and Saturdays from 1:30pm to 10pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Sept. 19
Photo courtesy of Annie Wang
MBMore, a printmaking arts and crafts store in Taipei’s Datong District (大同區) that regularly showcases cute and quirky artwork, is currently exhibiting Midsummer Night (林夏), a solo exhibition by Hsu Jui-zhi (徐睿志), who prefers to go by the name Muran (沐冉). Plants, pets and barnyard animals are among Muran’s favorite subject matters. While some of his carvings are etched in black and white, others are vibrant and colorful. Yet all of his prints have a domestic, sometimes humorous feel — for instance, a startled-looking Chihuahua wearing a hat, a cat clinging onto a fan that threatens to blow it away or a horse riding on another horse. His prints are definitely something I would hang on my wall if I had a country home with a barnyard-themed kitchen.
■ MBMore (岩筆模), 32-1, Chifeng St, Taipei City (台北市赤峰街32-1號); tel: (02) 2558-3395. Open Tuesday to Sundays from 1pm to 9pm
■ Until Sept. 27
Photo courtesy of MBMore
We rely so much on apps like Google Maps these days, putting our trust in gadgets and believing them to be infallible. An exhibition at Taipei’s Meme Space Gallery seeks to challenge this belief. The Depth of Appearances (表象的深度) consists of artwork by Hsu Xin-wen (許馨文), Chang Po-chieh (張博傑) and Zhao Pin-han (趙品函) that centers on questioning the fine line between appearance and reality. While Hsu’s main subject matter revolves around neighborhoods and living space, Chang tweaks Google Maps and Zhao recreates crime scenes by playing with color and perspective.
■ Meme Space (覓空間), 12F, 9, Roosevelt Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路二段9號12樓); tel: (02) 2396-5505. Open Mondays to Saturdays from 11am to 6pm
■ Until Oct. 3
Frees Art Space in Taipei is currently holding an exhibition, Society of Spectacular (奇觀社會), to highlight work created by artists from the art collective known as Hantoo Art Group (悍圖社). Formed in 1998, the Hantoo Art Group examines Taiwan’s history, mythology and folk culture, often by employing dark humor. Among the artwork displayed are surrealist painter Kuo Wei-guo’s (郭維國) sinister and mythical depictions of himself and of severed animal heads, as well as Chu Hsu-hsien’s (朱書賢) creepy black-and-white 3D animations.
■ Frees Art Space (福利社), B1, 82, Xinsheng N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市新生北路三段82號B1); tel: (02) 2585-7600. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 11am to 7pm, Saturdays 1:30pm to 9pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Oct. 8
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
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and