It’s the height of summer and Mind Set Art Center is bringing you Summer Time (夏日時光), a joint exhibition featuring works by several artists that are contemplative and lulling. As the gallery states: “We invite you to embrace art, to reset your mind and enjoy the…calmness that art brings.” Also, art galleries have air-conditioning. Included in the lineup is Mia Wen-hsuan Liu’s (劉文瑄) artwork that explores the psychological effects of traveling, which she likens to a constant reverie. Shi Jin-hua’s (石晉華) paintings and drawings are hypnotic in a different sense. A diabetic, his obsession with scales and measurements translates as a quest to seek scientific means to quantify human emotions. His lines and squiggles are haphazard and meticulous at the same time. Chinese artist Shi Jinsong (史金淞) is known for his bizarre and contorted sculptures which are meant to defy authority, but it’s his cool, simplistic Jiangnan Gray series, made with gray chalk and paint, that are on display at the gallery.
■ Mind Set Art Center (安卓藝術), 7F, 180, Section 1, Heping East Road, Da'an District, Taipei (台北市大安區和平東路一段180號7F), tel: (02) 2365-6008. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 11am to 6pm
■ Until Aug. 20
Photo courtesy of Mind Set Art Center
Held at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Analog Welcome, Digital Archive (類比開端·數位回溯) is an exhibition for those interested in the process of preserving, recording and archiving art. As uppity as it sounds, the exhibition raises important issues regarding methods of archiving and preserving the integrity art. For example, with technology constantly evolving, how do we preserve video art? If it is recorded on a DVD, but we no longer use DVD players, do we upgrade the artwork to USB or hold onto an old DVD player? It often depends on the artist — some don’t mind their artwork being tweaked, restored and upgraded, but some do.
■ Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館), 1 Xueyuan Rd, Taipei City (台北市學園路1號), tel: (02) 2896-1000 X 2432. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm
■ Until Sept. 11
Photo courtesy of TFAM
The sculptures and installations of Paiwan artist Sakuliu Pavavalung, founder of the Guliu Handicrafts Workshop (古流工藝社), are currently on display at the International Pavilion of Indigenous Arts and Cultures in Taipei. The Spirit and Our Life: Umaq and Ancient Totems of Paiwan (靈與我們的生活:Umaq與排灣族古老圖紋的故事) focuses on the concept of umaq, which means “house” in the Paiwan language. Few stone houses remain in Taiwan, and Sakuliu pays homage to this kind of architecture through sculpture, painting and handicrafts. Inherent in Sakuliu’s artwork, which here includes stone houses and wooden and bronze sculptures of Paiwan tribesmen, is the struggle of Aboriginal tribes to pay homage to their heritage while also participating in modern society.
■ International Pavilion of Indigenous Arts and Cultures (原民風味館) 151, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市中山北路三段151號), tel: (02) 2599-2655. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Sept. 18
Photo courtesy of TFAM
For an artist whose work takes an apocalyptic view on the world and human nature, Chou Tai-chun’s (周代焌) paintings are uncharacteristically cheery. State of Flux (崩解劇場) is Chou’s exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum wherein a series of colorful paintings depict a bunch of possible narrative outcomes if Taiwan was to suffer a cataclysmic natural disaster. In all the paintings, the backdrop is a wasteland, and a clean-up crew armed with gas masks and rubber boots are trying to clear the waste, but to no avail. Chou says the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan solidified his fatalistic view, reinforcing the belief that we are all pawns in nature’s game.
Also on display at TFAM is Wu Chien-hsing’s (吳建興) The Endless Ties of Love (情定終身). The exhibition is a video of what appears to be different groups of people at an extravagant banquet. Inspired by Wu and his wife’s wedding ceremony, the video brings to lights various points of contention, for instance, private vs public, relationships between individuals and between individuals and institutions, individuals and the state, modes of identification and the meaning of “home” — you know, just ordinary ruminations that come to mind when you think of your wedding.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM, 台北市立美術館), 181, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei (台北市中山北路三段181號), tel: (02) 2595-7656. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:30am to 5:30pm and until 8:30pm on Saturdays
Photo courtesy of TFAM
■ Both exhibitions open Saturday and run until Sept. 25
Photo courtesy of Mind Set Art Center
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
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
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located