Lee Chen (李真), one of Taiwan’s most sought after artists, will show more than 50 works at Taipei MOCA’s Being: In/Voluntary Drift (『世』一場自願非願的遊浮), a survey of his art from the 1990s to this year. From his iconic bronze sculptures to his latest mixed media installations, viewers will gain a comprehensive understanding of one of Taiwan’s top contemporary sculptors.
■ 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) 2552-3721. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Opening today at 4pm. Until Aug. 27
Photo courtesy of Eslite Gallery
At the group exhibition Ensemble (類聚集), the artist group Moving Moving Images (動動像) will show Wuxia movie, a video performance. The work, drawn from found footage from classic martial art movies and serving as a meditation on the genre.
■ VT Art Salon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, 17, Ln 56, Sec 3, Xinsheng N Rd, Taipei City (台北市新生北路三段56巷17號B1), tel: (02) 2597-2525. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 11:30am to 7pm, and Saturdays from 1:30pm to 9pm
■ Until Monday
Photo courtesy of Ever Harvest Art Gallery
An Ode to Thirty (三十) is a group show featuring 12 Taiwanese artists in their 30s or previous works by artists in their 30s, in celebration of Eslite Gallery’s upcoming 30th anniversary. Among these artists, Chou Tai-chun’s (周代焌) fascination with the environment results in brightly colored acrylic paintings on unstretched canvases. There is a fluidity in his works that alludes to the ethics revolving around issues such as environmental degradation and nuclear power.
■ Eslite Gallery (誠品畫廊), 5F, 11 Songgao Rd, Taipei City (台北市松高路11號5樓), tel: (02) 8789-3388. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until July 23
Photo courtesy of Moca, Taipei
Pang Jiun (龐均) presents a new series of oil paintings in The World Best Scenery (甲天下之美). The 80-year-old painter’s highly recognizable style is a fusion of Eastern poetics with the passion of the Fauves and a hint of Impressionism.
■ Ever Harvest Art Gallery (日升月鴻畫廊), 2F, 107, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段107號2樓), tel: (02) 2752-2353. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6:30pm
■ Until July 8
Photo courtesy of Red Gold Fine Art
The Once and Future Ink (筆墨夏一夫) is a retrospective in remembrance of Hsia Yi-fu (夏一夫). Hsia’s ink and color paintings on paper are projections of his ideal scenery. His delicate control of multiple layers and spaciality generates a complete and serene sense of presence.
■ Red Gold Fine Art (赤粒藝術), 15, Ln 116, Da-an Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市大安路一段116巷15號), tel: (02) 8772-5887. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until July 16
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