The gelatin silver prints by Austrian photographers Ina Forstinger and Gerald Berghammer are currently on display at Taipei’s 1839 Contemporary Gallery in an exhibition entitled Silverfineart Photography (銀鹽照片). The black-and-white images taken from their travels — from the glaciers of Iceland to the cityscapes of Dubai — have a mystical and lustrous quality that makes them look both antique and modern.
■ 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 Jan. 31
Photo courtesy of Bluerider Art
Performance artist River Lin (林人中) is putting on quite a show at the Barry Room in Taipei Artist Village. Entitled Encounter Project: The Exhibition Of Our Own (邂逅計畫 — 兩個人的展覽), the installation draws on Lin’s recent performance art shows in London, Paris and Berlin. While it’s probably unclear to most ordinary people what the larger significance of Lin’s work is, attendees should be forewarned that there “might” be nudity at the performance. Not only that, but audiences “might” also be called upon to “perform” with the artist, which, according to the gallery notes, “might” include listening to a song, taking a walk or “kissing each other or doing nothing.” I certainly hope I’ll fall into the “doing nothing” category if I attend Lin’s show.
■ Barry Room, Taipei Artist Village (台北國際藝術村百里廳), 7 Beiping E Rd, Taipei City (台北市北平東路7號), tel: (02) 3393-7377. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 9pm
■ Until Feb. 6
Photo courtesy of Eslite Gallery
Bluerider Art is celebrating their second anniversary with Selectbration: 2nd Anniversary Show (兩週年慶精選特展), a joint exhibition featuring the works of some of the past artists who have exhibited at the gallery. Emily Carew Woodard’s Victorian-esque paintings are of well-dressed, charming rabbits, rats, raccoons and other animals. Growing up in the Cornish countryside, Woodard spent a lot of her time in the woods and was constantly surrounded by animals. As such, she endows them with human qualities. Nick Veasey’s X-ray photography are also on display, as are Rine Boyer’s paintings of hipsters dancing, talking and drinking beer.
■ Bluerider Art (藍騎士藝術空間), 9F, 25-1, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段25-1號9樓), tel: (02) 2752-2238. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 9am to 6pm
■ Until Feb. 20
Photo courtesy of Bluerider Art
New media artist Wang Chung-kun’s latest exhibition, Making Sound (造聲), opens at Project Fulfill Art Space tomorrow with a live sound performance at 5pm. Wang, who previously dabbled in dance and theater, has been known to add a performance element to most of his kinetic sculptures and sound art. For the series sound.of.suitcase, Wang was influenced by portable sound devices. He repurposed bulky instruments such as organs and gramophones, converting them into installations that viewers can interact with. The series first previewed at Art Basel Hong Kong in 2014.
■ 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 Feb. 27
Shanghai-born, Los Angeles-based Taiwanese artist Ku Fu-sheng (顧福生) has been dazzling the art world for decades with his vibrant and colorful paintings, most of which are a blend of impressionism with Chinese sensibilities (his stamp is always on the bottom right hand corner of his paintings). His latest exhibition at Taipei’s Eslite Gallery, Song of Myself: Selected Works of Ku Fu-sheng, 1960-2015 (自我之歌—顧福生1960-2015作品選集), includes an exhaustive selection of his works created over the years in Taipei, Paris and various cities across the US. Ku’s work almost always revolved around the concept of the individual (most notably, a male individual) and his relationship with his surroundings, with other people and with his inner self. Works in his later years tended more towards simplicity, with his human subjects taking on more shapeless and fluid figures.
■ Eslite Gallery (誠品畫廊), 5F, 11 Songgao Rd, Taipei City (台北市松高路11號5樓), tel: (02) 8789-3388. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Feb. 28
The year was 1991. A Toyota Land Cruiser set out on a 67km journey up the Junda Forest Road (郡大林道) toward an old loggers’ camp, at which point the hikers inside would get out and begin their ascent of Jade Mountain (玉山). Little did they know, they would be the last group of hikers to ever enjoy this shortcut into the mountains. An approaching typhoon soon wiped out the road behind them, trapping the vehicle on the mountain and forever changing the approach to Jade Mountain. THE CONTEMPORARY ROUTE Nowadays, the approach to Jade Mountain from the north side takes an
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
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
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