Environmental art is a thing these days. Earlier this year was the Chenglong Wetlands International Environmental Art Project (成龍溼地國際環境藝術計畫) and the Keelung International Marine Art (基隆國際環境藝術季). Last weekend saw the opening of Water and Land: International Projects on Environmental Arts (流‧域:環境藝術國際小聚), organized by Bamboo Curtain Studio (竹圍工作室). The outdoor exhibition, held at the picturesque Tamsui Wharf, features artists and art groups from seven countries, including Taiwanese artist Wu Mali (吳瑪利), The Finger Players (十指幫), a theatre group from Singapore and Ketemu Project Space, a collective of artists and writers from Indonesia. The exhibition aims to raise environmental awareness through various art forms, from sculptures to documentary film. It also addresses topics such as how artists can create art that is environmentally friendly and the meaning of social participation in environmental art.
■ Tamsui Customs Wharf Warehouse C (淡水海關碼頭C棟倉庫), 259, Zhongzheng Rd, New Taipei City (新北市淡水區中正路259號), tel: (02) 8809-3809. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 10am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until Oct. 16
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
Currently on display at Aki Gallery is Japanese artist Hiroko Uehara’s beautiful, transcendent clay and stone sculptures of human-plant beings. The exhibition Deep Forest (森) is inspired by the ancient Japanese belief in animism, or that entities found in nature, such as plants and animals, have spiritual essences. Her sculptures of plants and seedlings take on feminine attributes while flower petals and vines sprout out from the limbs of her female characters, or fingers morph into roots. The result is mesmerizing, as if Uehara’s creatures are telling us to be one with nature — or at least respect it.
■ Aki Gallery (也趣藝廊), 141 Minzu W Rd, Taipei City (台北市民族西路141號), tel: (02) 2599-1171. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6:30pm
■ Until Oct. 30
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
Wang Liang-yin’s (王亮尹) cheerful, whimsical paintings of desserts, balloons and snowmen will be on display at Lin & Lin Gallery starting tomorrow. The exhibition Gift and Dust (禮物與塵埃) explores the effects of consumer culture, notably desire and gluttony, while also evoking nostalgic memories of childhood. The items Wang paints are essentially unnecessary frills — luxuries even — and she very cleverly manages to draw out the paradox inherent in the joy that eating a slice of cake brings us, for instance. Basically, her work poses the question: Are we striving to be better or is it simply human nature to be greedy?
■ Lin & Lin Gallery (大未來林舍畫廊), 16, Dongfeng St, Taipei City (台北市東豐街16號), tel: (02) 2700-6866. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Oct. 30
Photo courtesy of Lin & Lin Gallery
Tomorrow is the opening of Panorama (江湖), a solo exhibition by Chinese artist Yin Zhaoyang (尹朝陽), at Taipei’s Aura Gallery. Though he is known for his pop art paintings of Mao Zedong (毛澤東), it’s Yin’s large-scale expressionist landscape paintings that will be on display. In contrast with his pop art-inspired work, Yin’s landscape paintings infuse Eastern sentiments with influences from 1960s Western abstraction — though the emotions behind the paintings are no less intense. Yin favors evocative colors including deep maroon hues and regal emerald greens. His brush strokes are also bold, intense and highly texturized.
■ Aura Gallery Taipei (亦安畫廊台北), 313, Dunhua N Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段313號); tel: (02) 2752-7002. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 12pm to 7pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Nov. 12
Photo courtesy of Aura Gallery
While it’s not quite lemon season in Taiwan, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum will be filled with lemons — or, more accurately, installations revolving around lemons — starting tomorrow. In 2013, Huang Po-chih (黃博志) set out to raise awareness of the depletion of Taiwan’s farmlands by starting a crowdfunding campaign. Participants donated NT$500 and over the course of two years, 500 lemon trees were planted in abandoned farmlands in Hsinchu and Taoyuan. At the end of the project, each participant received a bottle of the Italian liqueur, Limencello. Five Hundred Lemon Trees: An Organic Archive (五百棵檸檬樹:有機檔案) traces Huang’s journey, including the project planning, initial research and site visits around Taiwan and in different countries. His lemons have also exhibited in China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Germany.
■ 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
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Nov. 27
Photo courtesy of TFAM
Photo courtesy of TFAM
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
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would