After gracing the gallery walls of New York’s Guggenheim Museum and London’s Tate Modern, the works of Japan’s famed Gutai Group are currently on display in the exhibition, Gutai (具體派). Founded in Ashiya in 1954 by Jiro Yoshihara, the group experimented with new art forms from abstract painting to performance art. In 1955, Kazuo Shiraga rolled around half naked in a pile of mud in the name of performance art, which, at the time was nearly unfathomable. Other instances of performance art include some of the Gutai artists using their feet to paint and poke holes into the canvas, as well as painting on glass jars and throwing them at canvases so that a splattered effect would be created. As silly as it sounds, the Gutai Group played a pivotal role in the development of post-war Japanese art by bringing it out of the confines of the museum and into the public sphere, while making art a little more fun for the viewer.
■ 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
■ Until Nov. 29
Photo courtesy of MBMore
Classical European paintings of nude people and cherubs floating by fluffy clouds generally tend to take up entire walls and ceilings of museums. But German artist Michael Sistig creates pint-sized works that are partly inspired by these classical paintings while infusing them with surrealistic scenes from his own travels. Sistig has always been intrigued by literature, mythology and theology, and it shows in his paintings, which make use of foregrounds and backgrounds in order to tell stories. Like many universal tropes and archetypes, the stories that Sistig tells dabble in dark humor and seem to have tragic outcomes. His paintings are on display in an exhibition entitled Mimacrocosmic (奈米宇宙).
■ 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
■ Until Nov. 29
Photo courtesy of Lin & Lin Gallery
Osaka-born, New York-based Japanese artist Kenro Izu has documented his life’s travels, from Scotland’s Stonehenge to the totems at Easter Island, with haunting black-and-white platinum prints — an old method of monochrome printing from the 19th century that produces a wide tonal range. He’s also photographed Buddhist and Hindu monuments across Southeast Asia and India such as the Borobudor and Angkor Wat. His photographs — which look like they were taken a hundred years ago – have an eerily majestic quality to them. A selection of his prints are currently on display in an aptly named exhibition, Kenro Izu’s Platinum Photography.
■ 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 Nov. 29
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
The Scottish town of Glenfiddich may be known for its whisky and icy winters, but for many artists around the world, Glenfiddich is also home to a prestigious artist-in-residence program. The program, which takes place at Glenfiddich Distillery, lasts for three months and is meant to immerse artists into the local culture through various activities such as weekly ceilidhs, or gatherings involving a lot of folk music and (presumably drunken) dancing. One of the lucky artists-in-residence was the Taichung-born Chang Huei-Ming (張暉明). During his time there, he recorded three videos, including a short film based on the history of the distillery and its surrounding forest, including clips on Scottish dance. The film, which he named Tough Town, probably to be ironic, will be screened at Taipei’s IT Park Gallery starting tomorrow.
■ IT Park Gallery (伊通公園), 2F-3F, 41 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街41號2-3樓), tel: (02) 2507-7243. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 1pm to 10pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Dec. 12
The cute and whimsical printmaking arts and crafts store MBMore is back with yet another titillating exhibition. Flaneur (?者記事) features a series of Lee Yen-jen’s (李彥蓁) fantastical prints inspired by his travels around the world. The exhibition is a namesake of the French term for a well-dressed gentlemen who saunters around cities observing people while trying to look as pretentious and aloof as possible. While Lin Hung-hsin’s (林宏信) paintings depict the flaneurs themselves, Lee is more concerned with the landscapes that are seen through the flaneurs’ gaze. Interestingly, all these “landscapes” are imagined rather than real. For instance, there are mountains floating in the sky, desolate playgrounds drifting in the clouds and decapitated heads intertwined in webs. It’s safe to say that you never really know what goes on in people’s minds.
■ 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 Dec. 27
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50