Becoming/Taiwanese (想像之所) is a solo exhibition by Taipei-based photographer Tsao Liang-pin (曹良賓), who uses the Chinese martyr shrines (忠烈祠) dotted across Taiwan as a departure point to examine the continuing process of re-writing history and national identity building that has shaped the context of what it means to be Taiwanese over the last 300 years. The martyr shrines, built upon previous Japanese Shinto shrines, are commemorative sites established by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) after their takeover in 1945. For Tsao, these memorials are more than simply places of remembrance: “they were a means to obliterate existing history…to redistribute economic resources…[to enforce] a new political system and nationalist identity into people’s everyday life,” the gallery writes in a press release. Over the past few years, the artist has researched and photographed 21 of Taiwan’s martyr shrines, many which are today viewed more as tourist attractions than political constructs of nationalism. In this de-politicized climate, Tsao presents his photographs as light-boxes alongside archival images of previously existing Shinto shrines in an attempt to visually trace the dynamics of “What is means to be Taiwanese” between the two periods of time.
■ TKG+ Projects, 2F, No. 15, Ln 548, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路548巷15號2F), (02) 2659-0798. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until April 29
Photo Courtesy of Joseph Kosuth Studio
The group exhibition, Still Waters Run Deep, at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts coincides with the museum’s inauguration of two newly renovated galleries after half of year of construction. The exhibition takes the city’s vital waterway, the Love River (愛河), as a metaphor to celebrate the cultural depth and rich history that Kaohsiung embodies. According to the curator, “the exhibition aims to demonstrate a calm and slow-paced cultural progress that reflects a tranquil sense of self-awareness, and, like a river, has traversed boundaries, connected different parties and encompassed all differences.” While the curatorial tone seems overly promotional, the exhibition includes 14 international and local artists whose works have garnered much attention. Renowned American artist Joseph Kosuth’s new neon light installation, Mappa Mundi (Taiwan), runs along a large white wall, sometimes forming words and other times loosening into abstract waves. Yoshihiro Suda’s delicate wood carved tulip is suspended in an unexpected corridor of the museum, creating a poetic pause in the exhibition flow. Legend Lin Dance Theatre (無垢舞蹈劇場), known for slow, spiritual dance performances, presents an installation, Poetry in Motion, which takes its title from one of the company’s celebrated dances.
■ Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (高雄市立美術館), 80, Meishuguan Rd, Kaohsiung City (高雄市美術館路80號) tel: (07) 555-0331. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:30am to 5:30pm
■ Until June 10
Photo Courtesy of TKG+ Projects
When the Decisive Moment is No Longer Eternity (當決定的瞬間不再永恆) is an intimate retrospective of photographer Hsieh Kuei-chang (謝貴昌). The title is a re-interpretation of Henry Cartier-Bresson’s 1950’s concept “the decisive moment,” which refers to the instant a photographer captures the essence of an ephemeral event. While celebrating this classic concept of humanist photography as a constant influence in his work, Hsieh also questions its relevance in today’s increasingly digital age as our relationship with time and material reality is rapidly changing. In this exhibition Hsieh asks us to reconsider the value and legacy of modern photography today. The show presents a selection of 44 photographs that Hsieh has taken during his travels through Taiwan’s diverse landscape over the past 20 years. These images are made with various kinds of film and show consistent experimentation with the medium. Flake Yard (1998) is a black and white photograph manipulated with darkroom effects that depicts a pair of suspended dried fish in a small town setting on the outlying island of Penghu. Fallen Blossoms Flowing Stream (1996) is a close-up of flower petals floating down a river in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投). The dream-like colors rendered in this photograph owes to Hsieh’s experimentation with a cross-processing technique that increases the saturation of color.
■ Taipei Cultural Center (台北市藝文推廣處), 25, Bade Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市八德路3段25號) tel: (02) 2577 5931. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 8:30am to 5:30pm
■ Until March 8
Photo Courtesy of the artist
The Renewal (川游不息) is a site-specific art exhibition that features artworks inspired by the sound, sight, smell, touch and taste of Green River (綠川), one of Taichung’s main water canals that traverses through the city’s old district. The 6.1km canal, once a healthy water stream, began degrading in the 1980s with the city’s industrial development. Under the supervision of Taichung’s Water Resource Bureau, the canal has been undergoing renewal since 2014. In this exhibition, 12 artists work with varying sensory capacities to interpret the canal from different angles. Lim Giong (林強), ALLO WILL and BARKHER collectively present a soundtrack that poetically encapsulates the rhythm of city life that surrounds the canal with field recordings and electronic compositions. Plant artist Liao Hao-jhe’s (廖浩哲) organic installation is built with local plant species such as different types of fern, moss, and herbal ingredients typically found in the herbal tea sold in Taichung’s old city district. These elements are infused with the odors of moist earth, herbal flavors and other materials the artist collected along the canal.
■ Taichung Shiyakusho (臺中市役所藝術中心), 97, Mincyuan Rd, Taichung City (台中市民權路97號), tel: (04) 307-7357. Open Mondays to Fridays from 11:30am to 7pm, and weekends from 11am to 7pm.
■ Until March 11
Photo Courtesy of Lyu Chuan
Visit the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, for ’S WANDERFUL | MAKING PICTURES, the first solo show of veteran American photographer Steve McCurry in a Chinese-speaking country. McCurry is celebrated internationally for his work in photojournalism and editorial photography. He is best known for his iconic Afghan Girl image, originally published in National Geographic in 1984 and later named the most recognized photograph in the history of the magazine. The image is a portrait of a young Pashtun orphan at a refugee camp near the border with Pakistan. McCurry and his team later reconnected with the young girl 17 years later. ‘“Her skin is weathered; there are wrinkles now, but she is as striking as she was all those years ago,” McCurry says. In this exhibition, Afghan Girl is presented as a collage installation in which different parts of the photograph are reconfigured in varying scale and coherence. The show also includes eleven other installations based on McCurry’s photographs, among which are a selection of images shot in Taiwan, including Taipei Grand Hotel Lobby, Readers at Huashan and a portrait of iconic Taiwanese photographer Ko Si-chi (柯錫杰). According to curator Leo Chang-jen Chen (陳昌仁), the exhibition seeks to reconsider McCurry’s work in the context of contemporary art.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (台北當代藝術館, MOCA, Taipei), 39 Changan W Rd, Taipei City (台北市長安西路39號), tel: (02) 2552-3721. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until May 6
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and