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
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built