VT Art Salon is currently featuring a series of video installations by sound artist Wu Tsan-Cheng (吳燦政), in an exhibition entitled Zero (恥). Wu claims the videos have “no narrative” and “no passion,” and that “it will be a bland movie” with lots of juxtaposition of images of jungles and cities, animals and humans. There will be “no judgement, no criticism,” Wu adds. Perhaps Wu means that the viewer is supposed to draw his or her own inferences from the clips about human nature and primitivism — though I don’t buy the idea that he’s trying to abstain from imposing his own viewpoints onto the viewer.
■ VT Art Salon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, 47 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街47號B1), tel: (02) 2516-1060. Open Tuesdays to Thursdays from 1:30pm to 9pm, and Fridays and Saturdays from 1:30pm to 10pm
■ Until Aug. 6
Photo courtesy of Liang Gallery
The Invisible Sound (看不見的聲音) is a solo exhibition at Taipei’s Liang Gallery featuring the works of Tainan-born artist Tsai Kuen-lin (蔡坤霖). The works exhibited range from photography and printmaking to sound and video installations, though many of Tsai’s works contain plastic pipes, which he twists and sculpts into different shapes. The centerpiece of this exhibition is Outside Inside (2016), an interactive sound installation made with plastic pipes, wood and photo frames. Viewers are welcome to climb on the installation and listen to sounds they would normally hear in a sprawling urban city. In his photography installation Still Life — Non-organic (2013), Tsai explores the idea of consumerism and brings into question the relationship between food and affordability.
■ Liang Gallery (尊彩藝術中心), 366, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路366號), tel: (02) 2797-1100. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm
■ Until Aug. 7
Photo courtesy of Liang Gallery
Hydrangea flowers usually take on varying hues, including white, light purple, and pastel blue and pink, but printmaking artist Yang Chen-hua (楊振華) chooses to color his flowers black. Entitled Black Hydrangea (黑色繡球) and held at the printmaking arts and crafts store MBMore, Yang’s solo exhibition explores the idea of withering beauty through a series of collagraphs of plants, though he does so in a way that’s cute and comical — for example, through little creatures gnawing on leaves. In fact, Yang creates a whimsical world where the whole idea of beauty is sort of topsy-turvy.
■ MBMore (岩筆模), 275, Nanjing W Rd, Taipei City (台北市南京西路275號), tel: (02) 2558-3395. Open Tuesday to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Aug. 14
Photo courtesy of MBMore
Digital artist Tu Pei-shih (杜珮詩) currently has a solo exhibition at Taipei’s Digital Art Center. Entitled The Abstraction Series (抽象系列), the exhibition consists of two of Tu’s videos, Cumming Inside Her Asian Pussy (2015) and Gennady Golovkin vs Marco Antonio Rubio (2016). In the former work, a single-channel animation, Tu uses stop motion to reproduce a video she found on Pornhub.com. The result is a heavily pixelated series of motions that looks like a conglomeration of orange and yellow squares moving about (way to make sex look unsexy). The latter work is a four-channel animation reproduced from a boxing match in 2014 which Tu found on YouTube. Like the former video, it’s also very zoomed-in and pixelated, though Tu manages to capture the excitement in this one. The video is a brilliant compilation of flashes of light and an overall feeling of disorientation.
■ Digital Art Center (台北數位藝術中心), 180, Fuhua Rd, Taipei City (台北市福華路180號), tel: (02) 7736-0708. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until Aug. 21
Photo courtesy of MBMore
The National Museum of Prehistory in Taitung City is currently showcasing a couple of intriguing exhibitions. One of them is Story of Water: Science, Civilization and Future (聽水的故事:水的科學.文明.未來), which, you guessed it, tells the history of water on our planet. Two-thirds of the earth is water, and civilizations have been built around rivers. The exhibition uses interactive displays and installations to educate viewers on the importance of water to our existence. Also taking place at the museum is the 4th Taiwan Indigenous Youth Arts Festival (蝶舞青春). On display are traditional Aboriginal crafts including leather carvings, sculptures and dye work made by Aboriginal high school students from across Taiwan.
■ National Museum of Prehistory, 1 Museum Rd, Taitung City (台東市博物館路1號), tel: (08) 938-1166, open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm
■ Story of Water is until Aug. 31. Indigenous Youth Arts Festival is until Sept. 11
Photo courtesy of Digital Art Center
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
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
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