Taiwanese-Swiss artist Una Ursprung (許常郁) will show her new oil and acrylic spray paint on canvas paintings at her solo show Accomplishing A Forest (一座森林的完成). In these new works, Ursprung’s use of two different paints form a dual narrative, enticing visitors to imagine a world weaved by various viewpoints.
■ Liang Gallery (尊彩藝術中心), 366, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路366號), tel: (02) 2797-1100. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm.
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Oct. 1
Photo courtesy of Da Xiang Art Space
White Stone Gallery presents Japanese artist Shozo Shimamoto’s mix medium works in Shozo Shimamoto X AU (嶋本昭三 X AU), which will feature expressionistic abstract acrylic paintings with household paint, glass-fragments and film sheets, as well as a variety of other objects. As one of the first members and key thinkers of Gutai, a prestigious Japanese art group and movement, Shimamoto formed an early international network with American artists like Jackson Pollock and Ray Johnson.
■ White Stone Gallery (白石畫廊), 1 Jihu Rd, Taipei City (台北市基湖路1號), tel: (02) 8751-1185. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 7pm.
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Sept. 24
Photo courtesy of River Art
The Core (核心) is currently showing Chiu Dou’s (邱掇) abstract acrylic paintings. Sometimes mixed with the use of charcoal and pencil, Chiu’s works are often monochromatic and his control of layers of light is also very intriguing, enabling an examination of painting’s intrinsic nature.
■ Gaiart (㮣藝術), No. 9-4, Pu-Cheng Rd, Taipei City (台北市浦城街9-4號), tel: (02) 2363-2000. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1:30pm to 7pm.
■ Until Sept. 17
Photo courtesy of White Stone Gallery
Lee Cheng-hsun (李政勳) will show his abstract acrylic paintings in a show of new works called Time in Transience (忽忽). In his large horizontal painting The Day Will Come Again, Lee conveys the closeness and distance among human interactions and the relations between humans and nature. Lee’s work shows an exceptional sense of time, with the geometric fragments forming an unseen web of inter-dimensional grids.
■ Nan Gallery (南畫廊), 3F-7, 200 Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段200號), tel: (02) 2751-1155, Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6pm
■ Opening tomorrow at 3pm. Until Sept. 24
Photo courtesy of Liang Gallery
Peggy Wu (吳美琪) will take part in Aura Gallery’s Summer Showcase II with her brightly saturated photography of her still-life prints. Her arrangement of mirrors in the composition suggests a contemporary version of works by the likes of Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso and Rene Magritte. In Wu’s 2017 work, XYX — A Moveable Feast #1-2, t raises questions of ephemerality and eternity while fresh fruit and mirrors hint at the inevitable mortality of life.
■ 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 noon to 7pm
■ Opening today from 6pm. Until Sept. 16
At the summer group show, Nothing But Happy (快樂進行曲), visitors will see Huang Ming-chang’s (黃銘昌) large oil painting Leisurely Floating (2004). As one of the most prominent landscape painters in contemporary Taiwan, his work offers a raw and down-to-earth vision of the nation’s culture and agricultural history, which recalls a nostalgia similar to contemporary works by Yeh Tzu-chi (葉子奇) and Hong Jiang-po (洪江波).
■ Metaphysical Art Gallery (形而上畫廊), 7F, 219, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段219號7樓), tel: (02) 2771-3236. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6:30pm
■ Until Sept. 24
A Gaze into the Illusory Transformation (凝視的幻化) will showcase Chu De-hua’s (曲德華) painted stainless steel mesh sculptures. As opposed to the traditional approach to sculpture, Chu’s signature style of using industrial building materials that merge two-dimensional and three-dimensional planes. The resulting sculptures give off a sense of lightness and an illusion that they are floating.
■ Da Xiang Art Space (大象藝術空間館), 15 Boguan Rd, Taichung City (台中市博館路15號), tel: (04) 2208-4288. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 8pm
■ Until Oct. 8
What I Hear (聽見) features ink and color on paper paintings by Chiang Hsin-ching (江心靜) at River Art in Miaoli County’s Sanyi Township. Chiang uses multiple techniques of contemporary ink painting that blend styles East and West. Emmy Award-winning acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton has created a musical suite for the solo exhibition. By integrating poems, paintings and music, the exhibition represents the voices that echo in the artist’s mind.
■ River Art (大河美術), 305 Shuimei St, Sanyi Township, Miaoli County (苗栗縣三義鄉水美街305號), tel: (037) 876-576. Open Wednesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opening tomorrow from 2pm to 5pm. Until Oct. 15
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
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located