So Far So Right (走私) is a group exhibition that engages with post-communist narratives and their developments since the end of the Cold War era. Primarily featuring perspectives of diaspora and transnational experiences, the exhibition presents artistic responses to geopolitical relations, boundaries, and agendas that make up the ever-shifting state of global governance. Bulgarian artist Kosta Tonev’s The Heavenly Bodies, Thrown into a Certain Definite Motion, Always Repeat is a series of still life drawings that explore the relationship between time, history, labor and exchange. The drawings include items such as the pleasure wheel, a manually operated, ferris wheel-like contraption from the Ottoman Empire; the Soviet Calendar, an alternative system of time that features five and six day week cycles, and the 100 Leva note, a short-lived currency issued after the dissolution of the Bulgarian Communist Party. UuDam Tran Nguyen’s Time Boomerang is a witty video performance and sculpture that illustrates the nature of transnational powers with a metaphorical act of cutting off the fingers of a metal cast hand and placing them in different oceans across a world map. Chen Szu-Han’s (陳思含) How to Stage an Archetype of Negotiation? reflects on the idea of negotiating political borders by a process of abstracting journalist photographs of war frontiers.
■ Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館), 1, Xueyuan Road, Beitou District, Taipei City (台北市學院路1號), tel: (02) 2893 8180. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 10am to 5pm
■ Through Feb. 25
Photo Courtesy of Jut Art Museum
Imagining Memorial (後解嚴:想像紀念館) at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (中正紀念堂) is a four-month program of art exhibitions, workshops and talks that aim to foster public dialogue about the future of the memorial hall. As Taiwan celebrates its 30th year since the lifting of the martial law, “the Ministry of Culture wishes to give back the people’s rights to re-interpret the memorial hall,” says Deputy Minister of Culture Celestine Ding (丁曉菁). The show includes videos, photographs, installations and participatory projects by eight artists as well as three conceptual proposals submitted by local architectural teams. Artist Chang Li-ren’s (張立人) Battle City is an animated video that shows a fictional battle headlined by 3D caricatures fighting in a Taiwanese cityscape. Chen Ching-yao’s (陳擎耀) International Radio Exercise is a multi-channel video that re-enacts the mandatory exercise program nationally broadcast in schools across Korea, Japan, and Taiwan during the Japanese occupation era. Architectural studio BIAS proposes the construction of a continually updated, 1:1000 model of the island of Taiwan that would stand in place of the current memorial hall building.
■ Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (中正紀念堂) 21, Zhongshan S Rd, Taipei City (台北市中山路21號), tel: (02) 2343 1100. Open daily from 9am to 6pm
■ Through April 8
Photo courtesy of Ms Hsu’s Paperweight
Jut Art Museum’s (忠泰美術館) A Decade: Our Urban Imagination and Adventures (十年,我們的城市想像與冒險) commemorates the 10th anniversary of Jut Foundation for Arts and Architecture (忠泰建築文化藝術基金會). Curated by Su Yao-hua (蘇瑤華), the exhibition includes an archive of artworks, architectural models, and documents that show the making of exhibitions organized by the foundation in the last ten years. The foundation’s program has consistently explored the future of urban spaces through contemporary art and urban architectural design programs. Artworks featured in this exhibition include Susumu Shingu’s Wings of Time, a group of kinetic sculptures with elegant, arching wings that were first exhibited by the foundation seven years ago in a rice field in New Taipei City. Lin Chuan-chu’s (林銓居) Rice for Thoughts is another agriculture related project that transformed an idle piece of urban land into a rice farm as part of a foundation project in 2007. This work harks back to the artist’s familial roots in farming and his ongoing contemplations on nature and man.
■ Jut Art Museum (忠泰美術館) 178, Civic Blvd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市市民大道三段178號), tel: (02) 8772 6178. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Through Feb. 25
Stanley Fung (馮君藍) is a pastor and award-winning artist who is currently showing a collection of faith-inspired photographs at Gallery 100. Fung was born in Hong Kong and moved with his father to Taiwan at an early age to set up the first ministry in Chiayi. His passion for photography was first inspired by the work of Juan I-jong (阮義忠), who later praised Fung’s work as “poetic portraits of the soul.” Fung considers his creative process as “a part of religious contemplation” and in this exhibition, he shows seven series of photographs of still-lifes, landscapes and enacted anecdotes that reveal his insights on humanity, life and holiness. In the photograph Revelation, a blue petal lies gently on the edge of a worn, hard copy book with leather binding. The book is set against a pitch-black background, which dramatizes the scene with cinematic passion perhaps in search of a suspended state of extraordinary.
■ Gallery 100 (百藝畫廊), 1F, 13, Ln 252, Dunhua S Rd, Taipei (台北市敦化南路1段252巷13號1樓), tel: (02) 2731-0876. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 11am to 7pm
■ Through Dec. 30
Ku Kuo-hsuan (古國萱) loves the simplicity of paper cutting — with just a pair of scissors and paper, she creates forms without premeditated sketches. Her exhibition from EARTH (土之生) at Ms. Hsu’s Paperweights keeps to a minimal presentation and features a loose cluster of paper streams hung from the ceiling. Light casts shadows of the paper onto the wall, creating an atmosphere of quietude and lightness. The cluster is composed of two paper stream projects that explore the themes of earth and rain respectively. Rain is a series of cutouts that spell out poetic verses she has gathered from her friends. Though the Chinese characters are small and hard to read, the viewer may grasp an overall impression of their literary meanings. Earth is a group of abstract forms inspired by the idea of growth; the artist works spontaneously as she cuts through paper, responding to the material quality and developing imagery. Through paper cutting, Ku reveals her observations and insights about the world and everyday life.
■ Ms Hsu’s Paperweights, 25, Ln 62, Zhongshan N Rd, Taipei City (台北市中山北路二段62巷27號), tel: (02) 2542-1220. Open Mondays to Fridays from 10am to 6pm, Saturdays to Sundays 1pm to 6pm
■ Through Jan. 1
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50