The Asia Art Center is currently featuring 1960–The Origin of Taiwan’s Modern Art (1960–台灣現代藝術的濫觴), a joint exhibition of Taiwanese artists whose work was influential in developing the genre of modern Taiwanese art in the 1960s. Most of the paintings exhibited are abstract or expressionist and combine elements of Western techniques and Eastern sensibilities. Included in the lineup is Beijing-born, Taiwan-raised Chuang Che, whose paintings are a blend of haphazard bright colors and controlled black brush strokes. The overlapping of different color paper and ink washes gives his artwork an abstract feel. But they also resemble waterfalls, mountains and forests, all of which is common in traditional Chinese painting. Another artist in the lineup is Walasse Ting (丁雄泉). It’s strange that Ting is included in the exhibition since he was born and raised in China and immigrated to New York. Nevertheless, his neon-palate art is as eye-popping as it is sensual — he painted everything from parrots to naked women.
■ Asia Art Center, 177, Jianguo S Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市建國南路二段177號), tel: (02) 2754-1366. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6:30pm
■ Until May 29
Photo courtesy of IT Park Gallery
Malaysian artist Dua, who sometimes goes by his Chinese name Yang Wei-bin (楊偉彬), has a new solo exhibition at the Jhongli Arts Center in Taoyuan. Panlawan (大神祭之戰) features Dua’s ceramics of monsters with both male and female reproductive organs brandishing swords and knives. Dua, who moved to Taipei four years ago, says that creating art in Taiwan has been a liberating experience in comparison to his home country. He uses penises and testicles to symbolize birth and life because he feels that imagery of female reproductive organs is overdone in art. Also, the Malaysian aborigines prayed to both male and female gods, and in this particular exhibition, Dua alludes to ancient Malay mythology. Though he’s been told that his monsters are “ugly,” to Dua, they are the apple of his eye.
■ Jhongli Arts Center (中壢藝術館), 16 Jhungmei Rd, Taoyuan City (桃園市中壢區中美路16號), tel: (03) 425-8804. Open Wednesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm
■ Until June 5
Photo courtesy of Lin & Lin Gallery
Chang Chia-ting’s (張佳婷) colorful abstract paintings are inspired by memories from her childhood — including playing rock-paper-scissors, flying kites and climbing trees. Chang uses a lot of pastel colors such as pale pink and baby blue, and the people and flowers she draws are rather childlike. Her drawings are not so much nostalgic or personal, but convey universal ideas of the importance of love and kinship. Chang is also fascinated by the notion of time and the overlaps between past and present. Not only does her artwork provide a window into the past, but they also convey her feelings at the time of drawing it. The Blissful Moments (快樂頌) is currently showing at Taipei’s Kalos Gallery.
■ 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 June 11
Photo courtesy of Asia Art Center
Chang Chia-ying’s (張嘉穎) large paintings of googly-eyed dolls are currently on display at Taipei’s IT Park Gallery in the exhibition Dark Shapiro (暗夜沙皮諾). Chang draws inspiration from fairy tales such as Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk but invents her own story line, sometimes with a more sinister touch — though that’s hardly surprising as many of the original fairy tales initially had gruesome endings before Disney G-rated everything. Nevertheless, Chang’s dolls with modern hairstyles are still really cute and her forests with tiny fairies fluttering around the lush greenery are beguiling.
■ 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
■ Until June 11
Photo courtesy of Dua
Macro-Micro-Actions (社·藝·流) is a joint exhibition at Bamboo Curtain Studio featuring artwork by artists from a variety of artistic backgrounds. One of them is the Hong Kong-born collector-turned-artist Margaret Shiu (蕭麗虹), whose kooky installations and ceramics critique society. Also in the lineup is Taiwanese aboriginal artist Suavepei Lee (李依佩) whose work revolves around the theme of loss and disappearance — especially the loss of her own culture. Kuo I-chen’s (郭奕臣) digital art is less tangible — the artist is fascinated with outer space, including black holes, comets, aliens. As a result, his installations have an alluring extraterrestrial quality to them.
■ Bamboo Curtain Studio (竹圍工作室), 39, Ln 88, Jhongjheng E Rd Sec 2, New Taipei City (新北市中正東路二段88巷39號), tel: (02) 8809-3809. Open Mondays to Fridays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until June 16
Founded in Ashiya, Japan in 1954 by Jiro Yoshihara, the Gutai Group experimented with new art forms from abstract painting to performance art. In the past, artists from the famed group have rolled around half naked in piles of mud and thrown painted glass jars onto canvases in order to create a splattered effect — all in the name of art, of course. In all seriousness though, the group played an important role in developing modern art in post-war Japan by bringing art out of the traditional confines of museums and galleries and into the public sphere. The works of three Gutai artists, Tsuyoshi Maekawa, Takesada Matsutani and Shuji Mukai can be viewed at Lin & Lin Gallery in the aptly named exhibition, Gutai 3M (具體三人展), though there won’t be any rolling in the mud.
■ 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 June 26
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist