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
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built