John Monteith is a Canadian-born artist and curator who has temporarily transformed the Taipei Contemporary Art Center into an installation of originally designed flags. Kindred Spirits (志趣相投) interprets “the architecture of various relational sites of social exchange that make up the urban environment,” writes the art center in a press release. The artist abstracts skylines, towers, buildings, zones, paths, parks and other distinguishable city constructs into a system of geometric designs that speak to the politics of space. As part of the Tua-Tiu-Tiann International Festival of Arts, the space will serve as a performance stage for a program of local and international queer artists working in performance, film and video. The presentation explores themes of “gender fluidity, identity, intimacy, fiction, desire, race and self-representation through a relationship between the abstract and the corporeal.” The roster of performers include Mria Prosphora, a Taipei-based interdisciplinary artist working in experimental sound, poetry, installation and performance; Soa, a practitioner and performer of BDSM bondage; Vika Kirchenbauer, an artist, writer and music producer based in Berlin; and much more. For the full list of performances visit: www.tcac.tw.
■ Taipei Contemporary Art Center (台北當代藝術中心), 11, Ln 49, Baoan St, Taipei City (台北市保安街49巷11號), tel: (02) 8501-2138. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 7pm
■ Until Nov. 3
Photo Courtesy of Michael Ku Gallery
Michael Ku Gallery presents Great Beauty on Earth (天地有大美), a solo exhibition by Chiang Hsun (蔣勳). Chiang is an artist, writer and educator who is considered Taiwan’s most important advocates for art appreciation, according to the gallery’s release. He was the founding chairperson of Tunghai University’s art department, former editor of monthly art magazine Lion Art and author of many popular books about art appreciation. Chiang’s artistic practice mostly involves painting and calligraphy and he works with both western and Chinese materials such as oil paint and ink washes. For this exhibition, Chiang presents a selection of new works, including paintings and calligraphy on canvas and paper. Chiang cites comic art, Hollywood culture, portrait drawing and traditional Chinese crafts as his influences. In his writings, he credits a handicapped portrait maker as “my first mentor [who] gave birth to my first artistic enlightenment.” Chiang’s later involvement with art history, literature, cinema, dance and theater has fueled his distinct style.
■ Michael Ku Gallery (谷公館), 4F-2, 21, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段21號4樓之2), tel: (02) 2577-5601. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Dec. 16
Photos Courtesy of Arki Galeria
Chan Chia-hua (詹嘉華) is a Taiwanese artist with a background in multimedia and animation. She works between visual and performing arts to explore the relationships between people, technology and media. Chan’s solo exhibition, The Y Generation: Artificial Corporeality (Y世代:人造知覺─詹嘉華個展), includes a selection of works that reflect upon digital technology and corporeality. She speaks of these themes from the perspective of the Y generation, which according to the exhibition preface, refers to the generation born between 1981 and 2000. “This generation grew up in an era when digital technology had yet to become popular; but as they entered adulthood, they have found themselves living in an environment characterized by digitization and information.” How have our senses evolved with the adaption of new electronic products? Are these abilities ephemeral, like virtual realities, which can cease to exist at the blink of an eye? In this exhibition Chan’s work seeks to “guide viewers to discover the boundaries between real bodily perception and... artificial perception.” Virtual Role: Artist Chan is an avatar on LINE that sends out exhibition information as well as responds to incoming messages generated by a back-end program. SomaMapping II is an interactive installation that records the audience’s movements and projects them into a virtual crowd, thereby creating a cluster of collective behavior.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art (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) 2559-6615. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until Dec. 2
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Contemporary Art Center
Currently on view at Arki Galeria is a solo exhibition by Japanese ceramicist Tetsuya Ishiyama. Tetsuya is an award-winning artist with a background in art conservation. As a conservationist, he has encountered countless works that embody religious faith, tribal spirituality and individual life stories. These experiences become great inspirations for the Tetsuya’s ceramic practice. ICON: Those Glorious Days (光輝時刻) includes 22 recent sculptures created during the artist’s residency at the Hualian Ceramic Art Center (花蓮台開洄瀾窯國際藝術村) last year. Tetsuya says creating art is a process of reviewing and creating history. By connecting past and present, the artist hopes pass on of human heritage. “The presented works evoke an impression of coral reefs that call towards the deep origins of civilization,” writes the gallery.
■ Arki Galeria (築空間), B1, 2, Chongqing S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (臺北市重慶南路一段2號B1), tel: (02) 2382-1000. Open daily from 10am to 10pm
■ Until Nov. 11
Photo Courtesy of Whitestone Gallery
Florentijn Hofman is a Dutch artist known for creating public sculptures with a universal aesthetic and instant appeal. He is the creator of the giant Rubber Duck that has made headlines while traveling around the world since 2007. Five years ago, the Rubber Duck made stops in Hong Kong, Keelung, Kaohsiung and Taoyuan, prompting a surge of media craze and public attention. This year the artist returns to Asia with a solo exhibition of his work at Whitestone Gallery. In Play Around the World, Hofman has re-scaled his public sculptures for the gallery display, including a small ceramic version of Rubber Duck and Flip Flop Monkey. The show also includes two new sculptural series Line and Glass Eyes. Line is literally wall-hung contours of animals that “explore the essence of beauty of form and shape,” writes the gallery. The artist has intentionally chosen endangered animals in this project to “emphasize the humbling force of nature.” Glass Eyes is a series of big, beady, stuff animal eyes displayed as minimal, abstract sculptures. By isolating a single element of the animal body, Hofman’s attempts “to create a simplified and purified aesthetic experience.”
■ White Stone Gallery (白石畫廊), 1 Jihu Rd, Taipei City (台北市基湖路1號), tel: (02) 8751-1185. Opens Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 9pm.
■ Until Nov. 11
Photo Courtesy of Arki Galeria
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
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In the aftermath of the 2020 general elections the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was demoralized. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had crushed them in a second landslide in a row, with their presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) winning more votes than any in Taiwan’s history. The KMT did pick up three legislative seats, but the DPP retained an outright majority. To take responsibility for that catastrophic loss, as is customary, party chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) resigned. This would mark the end of an era of how the party operated and the beginning of a new effort at reform, first under