Hua Chien-chiang’s (華建強) colorful gouache paintings are currently on display at Taipei’s Aki Gallery, in the exhibition Painting Becoming (從繪畫開始). Hua is known for infusing elements of modern Taiwanese life into landscapes derived from traditional Chinese painting in a way that’s both humorous and sarcastic. For instance, men in swimming caps snorkel in murky waters set against a backdrop of what looks like limestone mountains. In another, a young man wearing a sanitary mask floats though a picturesque background of dramatic, grayish black mountains and meandering rivers. Silly as they are, Hua’s artwork reminds us of the importance of taking care of the environment.
■ 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 June 26
Photo courtesy of In River Gallery
New York-based sculptor Shida Kuo(郭旭達) currently has a solo exhibition, Shida Kuo: Shifting Lines and Evolving Forms (郭旭達:游移的線與衍化中的形), at Taipei’s Eslite Gallery, which includes an exhaustive collection of paintings and sculptures that explore line, form and space. It’s intriguing to see the two-dimensional paintings translated into three-dimensional works. Kuo’s art has an alluring simplicity, and his sculptures in particular look like lamps and doorknobs but at the same time, they also bear some resemblance to ancient tools.
■ 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 July 10
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
Project Fulfill Art Space has never shied away from installation art, though the gallery is upping the ante this time around by featuring some sound art. Circus Without Circus (沒有馬戲的馬戲團) by Japanese artist Yuko Mohri is inspired by John Cage’s 1967 “musical score” Musicircus, in which he brought together several performers (including a pianist, vocalist and dancer) and had them perform simultaneously. Though it seemed well-orchestrated, the performance was un-rehearsed. Mohri builds on this idea by arranging percussion instruments, sound devices and everyday objects like aluminum cans and lamps throughout the gallery in a way that is discordant yet harmonious.
■ 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
■ Until July 17
Photo courtesy of Bluerider Art
Bluerider Art is currently featuring I Want, a joint exhibition featuring American artists Jonathan Rosen and Tom Smith. The title comes from Rosen’s series of collages I Want. Rosen, who used to work in advertising, collected concert stubs, baseball cards and business cards and made them into collages. The titles of his artwork all begin with “I Want…” I Want to Escape, for example, or I Want Attention. Through his collages, Rosen skillfully criticizes the nature of the advertising industry, in particular, how it’s meant to brainwash consumers into thinking that they want certain things to the point where they can’t think for themselves about what it is that they really want. Also on display are Smith’s hypnotic, neon paintings. Smith, who occasionally dabbles in sculpture and video art, infuses three-dimensional elements into his paintings, which also have a collage-like quality. Viewers are easily lulled into his crazy kaleidoscope of colors.
■ 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 July 23
Photo courtesy of Aura Gallery
Immensity, Intimacy (書齋與嬰兒房) is a group exhibition by Chinese and Japanese artists at Taipei’s Aura Gallery featuring artworks that are, well, immense in size but also very intimate in nature. Included in the lineup is late Japanese photographer Ueda Shoji, who was known to overlay realist and surrealist elements in his black-and-white photography. His later works were taken in color, though they are equally haunting. The exhibition also includes works by Chinese landscape calligrapher Li Tao (李濤) and Wang Mengsha’s (王濛莎) colorful ink paintings of dainty women dressed in traditional qipaos set against backdrops of rows of flower petals, exotic birds and roaming cats.
■ Aura Gallery Taipei (亦安畫廊台北), 313, Dunhua N Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段313號); tel: (02) 2752-7002. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 12pm to 7pm
■ Until July 23
Photo courtesy of Eslite Gallery
Liu Hsin-yi’s (劉信義) celestial-like paintings of skeletal people intertwined with corpses are on display at Taipei’s In River Gallery starting tomorrow, in the solo exhibition Seeking in the Shimmer (幽光尋覓). Liu paints with silver and gold ink on silk (a very tricky thing to do as silk is not the friendliest of mediums to work on). The result is both magical and eerie. His work, which depicts scenes that traverse life and death, is essentially an exploration of human nature — the morbid and enlightening aspects of it.
■ In River Gallery (穎川畫廊), 2F, 45, Renai Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路一段45號2樓), tel: (02) 2357-9900. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 8pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until July 27
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
A sultry sea mist blankets New Taipei City as I pedal from Tamsui District (淡水) up the coast. This might not be ideal beach weather but it’s fine weather for riding –– the cloud cover sheltering arms and legs from the scourge of the subtropical sun. The dedicated bikeway that connects downtown Taipei with the west coast of New Taipei City ends just past Fisherman’s Wharf (漁人碼頭) so I’m not the only cyclist jostling for space among the SUVs and scooters on National Highway No. 2. Many Lycra-clad enthusiasts are racing north on stealthy Giants and Meridas, rounding “the crown coast”
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and