Huang Ko-wei’s (黃可維) tropical bird paintings are currently on display at Aki Gallery in the show Phantom Gray (空灰). The title is somewhat puzzling as Huang’s paintings are anything but drab. Rather, colorful birds flutter about rain forests and other lush settings, appearing blissful and seemingly oblivious to the world around them. The backgrounds of the paintings are off-gray and foggy, making the birds stand out even more — perhaps that’s the “phantom gray.” Human figures are vaguely noticeable in the paintings, blending in with the pixels and textures of the rain forest. Huang makes clear that it’s the birds who are the main subjects of these paintings, and perhaps we could learn something from their orderly yet carefree nature.
■ 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 Jan. 3
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
Incarnation (另一個身體) is a haunting solo exhibition by Huang Chin-hua (黃錦華) at Kalos Gallery. For this series of paintings, Huang uses traditional ink painting techniques to portray clouds, rocks and other objects found in nature such that they resemble flesh, bones and other body parts. The curvature of each fold in the cloud or each crinkle in the skin is so detailed and precise that it’s beautiful and eerie at the same time. Huang not only breathes life into these objects, but her paintings also remind us that we must treat all living things with respect, as they are all part of our ecosystem.
■ 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
■ Until Jan. 9
Photo courtesy of Nunu Fine Art
Singaporean artist group Vertical Submarine is in town this weekend for the grand opening of their installation John Martin — The Butcher and the Surgeon (約翰馬汀:屠夫和外科醫生), which is to be held at Nunu Fine Art. The installation was inspired by John Martin Scripps, the first Westerner to be hanged in Singapore for three counts of murder which he committed in Singapore and Thailand in the 1990s. The art gallery has even redesigned their space to convert it into what they imagine to be Scripps’ hotel room where he committed some of the murders. It is complete with an en suite bathroom, two single beds and a used ash tray. The fun part is that visitors can walk through the “scene of the crime” and play detective.
■ Nunu Fine Art (路由藝術), 5, Ln 67, Jinshan S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市金山南路1段67巷5號), tel: (02) 3322-6207. Open Wednesdays to Sundays from noon to 7pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Jan. 16
Chao Yu-hsiu’s (趙宇脩) landscape paintings and calligraphy, painted on scrolls which take up entire walls from floor to ceiling, are currently on display at ArtDoor Gallery. Entitled Secret Path to Creek Mountains (谿山秘徑), the exhibition evokes a bygone era before modern technology when all that mattered was enjoying the simple, rustic countryside where rivers meander majestically and mountains stretch to the clouds. Chao’s paintings are done in the traditional way, with less attention paid to background and foreground, and more detail on the curvature and texture of the terrain on the mountains.
■ 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 Jan. 17
Japanese performance artist Kaya Hanasaki was so moved by the stories of the former residents of Treasure Hill Artist Village — which was once a squatter community composed of war veterans who retreated to Taiwan with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — that she decided to base her residency project on telling their personal histories. Her solo exhibition, My Home, Our Treasure (我的家園,我們的寶藏), explores their experiences of displacement and carving out a new identity, as well as the experiences of residents from other communities in Taiwan with similar histories. In other words, the exhibition aims to capture the essence of the innate human need to feel at “home.”
■ Treasure Hill Artist Village, 71 (寶藏巖國際藝術村,71), 2, Ally 14, Ln 230, Dingzhou Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市汀州路三段230巷14弄2號), tel: (02) 2364-5313. Open Tuesday to Sundays from 11am to 6pm
■ Until Jan. 31
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
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April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless