Justine Tjallinks’ captivating photos are currently on view at Highlights: New Dutch Photography Talent 2012-2017 (強勢崛起─荷蘭攝影明日之星). Her portrait Jeweled Intent is an excellent example of how contemporary photographers are blurring the boundaries between digital imagery and painting. Tjallinks seems to “paint” with her lens, as if she is bringing back to life portraits from the Renaissance — most notably Rembrandt masterpieces.
■ 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 Sept. 23
Photo courtesy of the artist and New Taipei City Arts Center
Chinese artist Huang Jing (黃菁) is showing his oil paintings at Dongli Gallery’s new space in Taipei as part of a group show. Huang depicts the scenery of China’s Guilin Province by adding traditional ink painting techniques to his oil surfaces, creating a unique ambiance that is poetic, serene and pensive.
■ Dongli Gallery (東籬畫廊);No. 15, Ln 71, Sec 1 Hangzhou S Rd, Taipei City;(台北市杭州南路一段71巷15號), tel: (02) 2391-6889. Open daily from 11 am to 7pm
■ Until Sept. 30
Photo courtesy of Dongli Gallery
Zheng Chong-xiao (鄭崇孝) will debut his large oil paintings made of several canvas as part of his sizable solo exhibition Pouting Boy: Reproduction Plan (嘟嘴男孩︰重製計劃) at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM). His works feature miniature self portraits in classical compositions of Chinese ink masterpieces along with conceptual collages of Japanese and Western manga and cartoon characters. One of his largest works features fictional icebergs in classical composition, obviously alluding to climate change.
Unlike his previous exhibition at a commercial gallery, Lin Tzu-huan (林子桓) has transformed TFAM into a psychedelic ruin-like pseudo-construction site/maze for his solo show The Yellow Snake Is Waiting (銜尾蛇). With colorful lighting, the show is comprised of several mysterious spatial installations, where visitors have to climb through broken walls and shattered pieces to navigate the exhibit.
Broken Spectre (破身影) is a group show of video art that features If the (Island’s) Body Is a (Marginalized) Rice Dumpling Par Excellence, a specially commissioned piece by Yu Cheng-ta (余政達) for which viewer discretion is advised. Yu’s installations contain an element of theater, with this one featuring two female characters delivering dramatic monologues and engaging in whimsical conversations regarding sadomasochism. While there’s no full nudity, the piece is an enticing act of seduction and submission.
Photo courtesy of the artist and Taipei Fine Arts Museum
■ 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
■ All exhibitions until Sept. 17
Chen Yan-ru (陳衍儒) is showing his acrylic paintings at the group show The Reflection of Floating Dream (浮夢˙凝映). Chen creates digital painting-like textures with intricate handmade templates that result in an illusion of digitally-rendered lacquerware. Chen’s paintings questions the post-Internet age of digitization while recycling compositions from old Chinese masters and Impressionists like Claude Monet. His approach is refreshing and colorful.
Photo courtesy of Show Gallery
■ New Taipei City Arts Center (新北市藝文中心), 62 Jhuangjing Rd, New Taipei City (新北市板橋區莊敬路62號), tel: (02) 2253-4417.
Open daily from 9am to 5pm
■ Until Sept. 24
Photo courtesy of VT Art Salon
Yeh Jen-kun (葉仁焜) is showing his mixed-media ink paintings on canvas and silk at the group show Ink × Multiplicities II (水墨×複數II). Yeh pushes the traditional definition of painting by fusing gelled pigments, ink, silver foil and other media, renewing contemporary possibilities for traditional materials.
■ Show Gallery (小畫廊), 166, Shizhong 1st Rd, Kaohsiung City (高雄市市中一路166號).Open Wednesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm. Tel: (07) 215-0798
■ Until Sunday
Lin Hsi-chun (林?俊) is showing his abstract acrylic paintings at his exhibition The Poetic of Space Through (詩性空間的穿越) at Kaohsiung’s Sincewell Gallery. Lin’s non-linear perspective approach to abstract painting reminds us of Richard Diebenkorn’s style, though Lin employs more lines and a wider palette range that forms a complex mash up of different spatial dimensions.
■ Sincewell Gallery (新思惟人文空間), 2F, 37 Mingjhe Rd, Kaohsiung City (高雄市明哲路37號2樓). Open daily from noon to 10pm. Tel: (07) 345-2699
■ Until Sept. 17
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
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