On display at CANS Tea & Book Shop is Next Superstar (未來大明星), a joint exhibition of seven emerging Taiwanese and Chinese artists. It includes Chinese artist Xu Jiong’s (許炯) minimalistic-style squiggly ink paintings and Taiwanese artist Huang Chih-cheng’s (黃至正) prints of half-human half-animal figures that convey the frailty of life. Also in the lineup is Chinese comic book artist Yan Cong (煙囪) whose graffiti-like work is influenced by characters from children’s cartoons.
■ CANS Tea & Book Shop (罐子茶書館), 9 Lishui St, Taipei City (台北市麗水街9號), tel: (02) 2321-6680. Open daily from 1pm to 9pm
■ Until Sept. 30
Photo courtesy of MBMore
Printmaking shop MBMore is currently featuring the works of three young printmaking artists, Lee Jhih-Yun (李芷筠), Aaron Horse (林恩崙) and Wu Pei-hsuan (吳佩璇). No One Here explores the notion of fleetingness. Lee’s messy depiction of keyboard buttons and charts represent a flow of thought and how the human mind does not think in logical ways, while Horse conveys this through etchings of dismembered thumbs. Wu’s lithographic prints appear to be merely black sheets of paper, but upon closer inspection, eerie silhouettes and shadows are revealed, which seem to suggest the adage that nothing is what it seems.
■ 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 Oct. 2
Photo courtesy of MOCA
Czech artist Milena Dopitova’s will show her photographs and video installations at VT Art Salon. My Body is a Temple is a collaboration with musician Peter Wagner, who provides audio for Dopitova’s meditative work, while the title alludes to the Christian concept of treating one’s body like a temple where the Holy Spirit dwells. Dopitova uses this central theme to challenge her own existence, as well as the relationship and gaps between individuals and society.
■ 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
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Oct. 22
Photo courtesy of TKG+
Currently on display at MOCA is Project: Finding Home (菲常態:尋找家園), a solo exhibition by Filipino artist Ronald Ventura. Ventura is known for his elaborate and evocative surrealist paintings, sculptures and installations which incorporate elements of the folk traditions found in the Philippines, American pop culture and Japanese anime. The complex layering evident in his work alludes to the fact that the Philippines was repeatedly colonized by foreign powers and how this has led to a rather complex and tortured notion of national identity — and in turn, Ventura’s own sense of belonging. Ventura has also created a series of site-specific installations at MOCA that explore what the concept of “home” means to Filipino migrant workers in Taiwan.
■ 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. Admission: NT$50
■ Until Nov. 20
Photo courtesy of MBMore
The Taipei-born, Vietnam-based Charwei Tsai (蔡佳葳) says her calligraphy and installations are influenced by Buddhism and the Buddhist concept of emptiness, though she is not a religious person. In Universe of Possibilities (宇宙的可能性), which opens at TKG+ Projects tomorrow, Tsai uses ephemeral objects in her artwork to ponder the way in which the human mind perceives things. In the video installation Bardo (2016), Tsai collaborates with Tibetan filmmaker Tsering Tashi Gyalthang to explore the concept of life after death. In the photographic series Universe of Possibilities (2016), what appears to be planets are actually close-ups of discarded fishing nets along the coast of central Vietnam.
Chen Ching-yuan (陳敬元) continues to examine Taiwanese politics and his own identity in What Am I? If I Can’t Be Yours, which also opens at TKG+ Projects tomorrow. The title derives its name from the song Thanatos: If I Can’t Be Yours from a Japanese anime film. Chen offers his own interpretation of the lyrics, challenging the usage of language as a mode of communication and as a way of understanding ourselves and the things around us.
■ TKG+ Projects, B1, 15, Ln 548, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路548巷15號B1), tel: (02) 2659-0798. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Both exhibitions open tomorrow and are until Nov. 20
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
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
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