Sound artist Cheng Hsien-yu (鄭先喻) has a solo exhibition at Digital Art Center. Radio Was Heard Before It Was Invented explores the many ways in which humans communicate, while offering alternative modes of communication as well. His mediums are diverse, from solar panels to software prototypes that can generate magnetic fields. Cheng’s interest in physics is clearly evident, though he utilizes it in a way that’s both aesthetic and intelligible to viewers, showing us how our lives are somewhat dictated by the hardware and software that we create — but also how we can wrest back control from these machines.
■ 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 Oct. 9
Photo courtesy of Mind Set Art Center
Project Fulfill Art Space’s Chemical Gilding, Keep Calm, Galvanize, Pray, Gradient, Ashes, Manifestation, Unequal, Dissatisfaction, Capitalize, Incense Burner, Survival, Agitation, Hit, Day Light. III (電鍍金,保持冷靜,鍍鋁鋅版,祈禱,漸層,灰燼,抗議,不均,不滿,資本,香爐,佼存,激動,擊,日光。三) is a solo show by conceptual artist Chou Yu-cheng (周育正). The long title consists of words that bear significance to Chou. It is also the third installation in a series that were displayed in Berlin last year and Hong Kong earlier this year. The Taipei exhibition is autobiographical, and each object is supposed to critiques some social phenomena, while fleshing out the interplay between aesthetics and violence in capitalist societies.
■ 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 Oct. 9
Photo courtesy of Digital Art Center
Asia Art Center is currently displaying the work of two Chinese painters in Zero Degree (零度). While Shen Qin’s (沈勤) style is more lyrical, poetic and reminiscent of brush paintings from the Song dynasty — save for the pastel hues — Chen Qi’s (陳琦) black-and-white oil and ink paintings exhibit elements of Western expressionism and surrealism. The works of both artists lull viewers into a dream-like state, though Shen’s ink wash paintings of mountains and villages have a more tranquil effect, and Chen’s depictions are more dizzying and hypnotic.
■ 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 Oct. 9
Photo courtesy of In River Gallery
Social constructs are silly. A lot of artists know that. And that’s why they create art to show how silly social constructs are. Endless Ritual (無盡的儀式) is a joint exhibition by Chen I-chun (陳依純) and Luo He-lin (羅禾淋) at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Both artists use video and kinetic installation to show how technology has come to dominate our lives. Mechanization is an important motif, as are dependency and convenience. Machines have come to control the way we think, they argue. Even “friending” someone we barely know or have never met in real life on Facebook is an act of mechanized thinking — a cold and unthinking act that is far removed from what friendship is supposed to mean.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (台北當代藝術館, MOCA, Taipei), 39 Changan W Rd, Taipei City (台北市長安西路39號), tel: (02) 2552-3720. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until Oct. 23
Project Fulfill Art Space
Chou Chen’s (周宸) stunning abstract paintings inspired by dichotomies that define nature — tame and wild, peaceful and intense — are on display in A Far-flung Mind (心遠無塵). His color palate, which ranges from opaque white to murky green and deep crimson, show how swiftly nature and humans can change from something familiar and comfortable to a force more unknown. Chen also tries his hand at sculpting glass and using steel and cloth in his artwork, though he sticks to painting in this exhibition.
■ 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 Oct. 26
Photo courtesy of Asia Art Center
Photo courtesy of MOCA
The year was 1991. A Toyota Land Cruiser set out on a 67km journey up the Junda Forest Road (郡大林道) toward an old loggers’ camp, at which point the hikers inside would get out and begin their ascent of Jade Mountain (玉山). Little did they know, they would be the last group of hikers to ever enjoy this shortcut into the mountains. An approaching typhoon soon wiped out the road behind them, trapping the vehicle on the mountain and forever changing the approach to Jade Mountain. THE CONTEMPORARY ROUTE Nowadays, the approach to Jade Mountain from the north side takes an
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
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
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