For its 30th anniversary, Swiss luxury skincare company, the Valmont Group, suddenly decided to curate art, and voila, When Art Meets Beauty (美麗同步), a touring exhibition featuring the work of nine European artists, was born. The exhibition is currently making a brief stop in Taipei, at the Spa by Valmont in Xinyi District’s (信義區) Yixian Road (逸仙路). While the link between art and a skincare company may seem tangential, at least they’ve tried to tie it together by choosing the not-so-trite theme of “beauty.” But seriously, from Jane Le Besque’s crucifixion drawings to Quentin Garel’s sculptures of animal skulls, the artists that Valmont has chosen effectively muddle the meaning of “beauty” and they render their work beautiful in their own‘— albeit twisted — way.
■ The Spa By Valmont, 48, Yixian Road, Taipei City (台北市逸仙路48號), tel: (02) 2362-0805
■ Until Wednesday
Photo courtesy of Michael Ku Gallery
As if marking the end of a warm, cheerful summer, eerie, haunted images and dark, somber colors seem to be popular motifs in art galleries across Taipei this week. Wang Jie (王頡) has made a name for himself painting images of “invisible” people going about their daily lives, whether this be bantering at bars, courting pretty girls in petticoats, or fleeing from law enforcement. Although we do not see flesh or limbs, the silhouettes of their clothes create a tangible, lifelike presence. Much attention is given to movement, and this is largely achieved through the creases and ruffles of the clothes — some characters don modern attire while others look like they hopped out of a time machine. Wang’s paintings will be on display at Lin & Lin Gallery, in an exhibition entitled The Volume of Time (時間的容量).
■ Lin & Lin Gallery (大未來林舍畫廊), 16, Dongfeng St, Taipei City (台北市東豐街16號), tel: (02) 2700-6866. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Sept. 27
Photo courtesy of Lin & Lin Gallery
Hsieh Chun-te’s (謝春德) grainy black-and-white photos have won him many accolades among art circles in Taiwan over the last couple of decades. His latest exhibition, Raw — The Flux of Desire (Raw — 慾望流體), held at Taipei’s ArtDoor Gallery, will feature some of Hsieh’s most riveting photography that captures raw human desire when it is stripped from such niceties as restraint and social decorum. It took him more than 20 years to produce each image. A tad graphic — in one photo, a priest receives fellatio and in another, half-naked bodies of women hang upside down from a pole — the pictures are meant to show the viewer that mankind has not evolved all that much, at least morally. In other words, we’re still driven by our primal urges. The exhibition is also a preview of Hsieh’s work which will be featured in Photo Shanghai from Sept. 11 to Sept. 13.
■ 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 Sept. 27
Photo courtesy of ArtDoor Gallery
Michael Ku Gallery will be featuring a set of 11 works by Guo Yu-ping (郭俞平) in an exhibition entitled Sun Yat-sen Freeway (中山高). Named after Taiwan’s first freeway, the Sun Yat-sen Freeway (中山高速公路), which linked Keelung to Kaohsiung in 1978, the series explores Taiwan’s history as seen through the experiences of an imagined family. The backdrop, as you might have guessed, is the freeway, but in varying gradations of black and white. Utilizing various mediums such as painting, video and installation, Guo guides his viewers through the latter years of the Cold War into the contemporary time period. But instead of assuming a national perspective, his point of view is intensely personal — evidently, much can be learned from the gaze of a young boy sitting in the back seat of the car as he watches the landscape outside him morph.
■ Michael Ku Gallery (谷公館), 4F-2, 21, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段21號4樓之2), tel: (02) 2577-5601. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Oct. 1
Photo courtesy of Project Fulfill Art Space
Subsurface Inclination (隱匿傾斜) is a joint exhibition by Hsu Yung-hsu (徐永旭) and Liu Wen-hsuan (劉文瑄) at Taipei’s Kalos Gallery. Liu makes delicate three-dimensional paper cuttings. She painstakingly cuts and folds pieces of paper and mashes them together to create massive structures that fill up entire walls. Some of her creations resemble coral reef and seaweed, while others take on geometric shapes. Hsu is best known for his giant ceramic sculptures that resemble a coral reef. Despite being made from clay, his sculptures appear to be very light. Hsu’s sculptures provide a nice complement to Liu’s paper cuttings as both fill entire rooms but manage to be delicate and exude a subtle presence.
■ Kalos Gallery (真善美畫廊), 269, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段269號), tel: (02) 2836-3452. Open daily from 10am to 6:30pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Oct. 3
Well, You Can Have What’s Left of Mine (嗯,你可以擁有我所剩下的) is an exhibition about loss. Held at Project Fulfill Art Space, the artist, Hong Kong-born Kwan Sheung-chih (關尚智), tells the story of a person who he dubs “K” (perhaps a former lover) through a series of sculptures and installations. “K” leaves behind random objects in the artist’s room. Among these are a butterfly clip, bottles of facial cleanser, facial cream and sunblock and a pair of unfinished knitted gloves. “K” also leaves behind some postcards from Miami with the words “hey” and “hi” printed neatly on them, and some handpicked flowers. On a bedside table lies a pen and notepad with some undecipherable numbers, while a faded calendar hangs on the wall. The viewer gleans a feeling of imminent loss from someone walking out of your life, as well as a haunting feeling that they’re still there, but only in spirit.
■ 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 Oct. 11
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