Ribbons and Prisms (絲帶和棱柱) is Japanese artist Tadahiko Ikegaki’s Taiwan debut. Visitors will see his three-dimensional works and installations made of soldered copper plates, etching and acrylic ink as well as works on paper. Ikegaki’s style fuses elements of Japanese minimalism and a hint of pop art and Dadaism, which gives his works depth and strong visuals.
■ Galerie Grand Siecle (新苑藝術), 17, Alley 51, Ln 12, Bade Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市八德路三段12巷51弄17號), tel: (02) 2578-5630. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm
■ Until Sept. 8
Photo courtesy of Telling Arts
Spanish artist Miguel Angel Vargas will show two series of his photographic works: Seta and Abstract Nature at his solo exhibition SETA (蕈息). In Abstract Nature, Vargas’s use of symmetric imagery with elements found in nature that resemble images from typical Rorschach tests, as if testing the perception of the viewers through questioning the state of reality.
■ Telling Arts (疊藝術), 40 Ln 415, Guangfu S Rd, Taipei City (台北市光復南路415巷40號), tel: (02) 8786-9211. Open daily from 1pm to 8pm
■ Until Sept. 3
Photo courtesy of the artist and The Jen Library
Liu Chih-hung (劉致宏) will show a few of his oil paintings at the group show titled A Journey Far from Home (遠行的你). Liu’s signature style has a tendency to create hyper realities that evoke familiar memories. His brushstrokes are almost magical, painting his version of landscapes with an expressionistic style.
■ Galerie nichido Taipei (台北日動畫廊), 3F, 57 Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段57號), tel: (02) 2579-8795. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Sept. 16
Photo courtesy of the artist and Nanyuan Land of Retreat and Wellness
Stroke of Light and Geometric Sight (微光幾何) features abstract oil paintings by Hong Kong-based Chinese artist Karsiu Lee (李加兆) and Chinese artist Yang Liming (楊黎明). Over the years, Lee has found unique ways to symbolize his emotions and his encounter of historic events through abstraction.
■ Jia Art Gallery (家畫廊), 1F-1, 30 Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市中山北路三段30號1樓之1), tel: (02) 2595-2449. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 8pm, by appointment only.
■ Until Sept. 2
Photo courtesy of Galerie nichido Taipei
For the seasoned painter Thomas Tan (譚行健), every painting is about tracing the traditions of history. Tan is known for his ink-painting-like oil paintings. Visitors to his exhibition Chinese Landscape Surrounding by Corridor (迴廊裡的山水畫展) will experience the connections of his works with the beautiful surroundings of Hsinchu County’s Nanyuan Land of Retreat and Wellness (南園人文客棧) ). For this exhibition, Tan has specifically painted new watercolor paintings of the historic exhibition site.
■ Nanyuan Land of Retreat and Wellness (南園人文客棧), 32 Jiuqiong Lake, Sinpu Village, Hsinchu County (新竹縣新埔鎮九芎湖32號), tel: (03) 589-0011, ext 3. Day tickets are NT$1,480 +10%, with two hour (Chinese) tour, lunch and afternoon snacks included. Advance reservations are required.
■ Until Thursday
Photo courtesy of Galerie Grand Siecle
A Group of Playing Cats (喵的我嫑嫑的)shows exactly what the name describes. Visitors to the exhibition will see playful feline sculptures by Liu Je-rong (劉哲榮) in prior to casting in bronze. Liu is known for creating ironic sculptures of personified animals, which starts a dialogue of how the relationship between humans and animals should be.
■ The Jen Library (真書軒), 2F, 59 Xinyi Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市信義路三段59號2樓), tel: (02) 2755-6909. Open daily from 10am to 7pm (Closed on every first Monday of the month)
■ Until Sept 3
The inspiration of Hsia Ai-hua’s (夏愛華) mixed media works solo show After Dawn, Till Moonrise (日落之後;月升之前) came from a virtually supernatural experience from her travels to Japan last year. As the time between sunset and moonrise marks a time of limbo and ambivalence. Hsia has taken the Japanese etymology of the word sunset into an investigation across dimensions, life and death, reality and non-reality.
■ Moon Gallery (月臨畫廊), 6, Ln 589, Yingcai Rd, Taichung City (台中市英才路589巷6號), tel: (04) 2371-1219. Opens Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm (Closed on every last Sunday of the month)
■ Until Sept. 3
Lo Yi-chun’s (羅懿君) solo show Zeelandia (熱蘭蔗城紀事) took inspiration from Tainan’s history of trade among the Chinese, Japanese and Dutch merchants. Throughout the entire exhibition, visitors will see installations made of deer leather, engaging in discussions of the interaction of the aboriginal tribes with modern society in history and presence.
■ Absolute Space for the Arts (絕對空間), 11 Minsheng Rd Sec 1, Tainan City (台南市民生路一段205巷11號), tel: (06) 223-3508, open from Tuesdays to Fridays 12pm to 8pm and Saturdays and Sundays from 2pm to 8pm
■ Until Sept. 10
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
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
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