The fourth annual Art Taichung (台中藝術博覽會) kicks off tomorrow at the Millennium Hotel Taichung. This year’s lineup includes notable Taipei galleries such as Bluerider Art, Galerie Grand Siecle and In River Gallery. While paintings — especially colorful, abstract paintings and paintings of flowers feature prominently — there will also be a substantial amount of sculpture. Taichung is home to some very kooky public art that challenges the way we think about and interact with art, while raising awareness of issues like urban development. The Taichung Sculpture Association will also be giving a talk tomorrow from 1:30pm to 3pm at the Millennium Hotel Taichung.
■ Millennium Hotel Taichung (台中日月千禧酒店), 77 Shizheng Rd, Taichung City (台中市市政路77號). Open tomorrow to Sunday from 12pm to 7pm. Admission: NT$150
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Sunday
Photo courtesy of Tina Keng Gallery
Why Didn’t You Like My Pic? (為什麼你不喜歡我的照片?) is a riveting exhibition at the newly opened Pon Ding project space that features the works of 16 up-and-coming female artists from around the world — including three from Taiwan — that explores what it means to be working and existing online. Organized by Off Topic, a Taipei-based art event organization and curated by Grace Miceli of the online exhibition space, Art Baby Gallery, the exhibition serves to question the sincerity of our online interactions. John Yuyi’s work, for example, questions what it really means to have thousands of Twitter followers — how fulfilling is it, really? The exhibition, nevertheless, does not condemn the use of social media. Far from it. The artists seem to suggest that we might as well be honest with our intentions as it looks like most of us need to cultivate an online presence for the sake of our careers.
■ Pon Ding (朋丁), 3F, 6, Ln 53, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市中山北路一段53巷6號3樓), tel: (02) 2537 7281. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 8pm
■ Opening party is tomorrow, at Pon Ding, from 7pm to 10pm. Until Aug. 28
Photo courtesy of Off Topic
Yogis will love the new exhibition at Tina Keng Gallery. Axis of Life (生命之軸) is a solo exhibition by Japanese sculptor Ikki Miyake, who uses wood from the torreya tree — the same material used in Japan since the 9th century to make sculptures of Buddha — to create his sculptures of supple women striking various yoga poses. The choice of material came naturally to Miyake who found it to be akin to the smoothness of human skin. His sculptures also make the point that trees are not inanimate, soulless objects and that we should treat all living things with respect. Namaste.
■ Tina Keng Gallery (耿畫廊), 15, Ln 548, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路548巷15號), tel: (02) 2659-0798. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 7pm
■ Until Sept. 4
Photo courtesy of Galerie Grand Siecle, Art Taichung
Video and the Third Person’s Perception (影像的第三方認知), a group show Currently on display at Taipei’s Galleria Heng by digital artists, Su Hui-yu (蘇匯宇), Wang Ding-yeh (王鼎瞱) and Wu I-yeh (吳宜曄). The exhibition examines the feelings of intimacy and distance, something which is entirely dependent on clicking an on-off switch. Su’s work explores “taboos” in Taiwanese culture such as the expression of lust and sexuality. Wang’s single-channel video, meanwhile, is inspired by family histories and archives. Wu’s work, by contrast, appears a little less introspective and toys with sound art and acoustic effects.
■ Galleria Heng (恆畫廊), 12-1, Ln 58, Xinsheng S Rd, Taipei City (台北市新生南路一段58巷12-1號), tel: (02) 3322-2553. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 7pm
■ Until Sept. 18
Photo courtesy of Off Topic
Artist Hsu Chia-wei (許家維), who is fascinated by the lost histories of the Cold War in Asia, examines the lives of residents of Huai Mo Village in his latest exhibition, Huai Mo Village Project (回莫村計畫), held at Taipei’s Hong Gah Museum. Huai Mo Village lies on the border of Thailand and Myanmar where its inhabitants live in a constant state of identity crisis. The 1949 defeat of the Chinese Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War resulted in the retreat of 2,000 soldiers from southern China’s Yunnan Province to Myanmar. They gradually settled at the Myanmar-Thai border, where, over the years, they were able to sustain themselves with poppy growing and trafficking drugs from Myanmar. Hsu’s videos and installations, which appear part documentary, part theater, take a look at the psychological effects of this displacement. In one video, he films children at an orphanage whose parents were either sentenced to death for drug dealing or who were killed because of drug-related disputes.
■ Hong Gah Museum (鳳甲美術館), 11F, 166 Daye Rd, Taipei City (台北市大業路166號11樓), tel: (02) 2894-2272. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10:30am to 5:30pm
■ Until Sept. 25
Photo courtesy of Ta Han Arts/ Art Taichung
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