The sixth edition of Art Kaohsiung (高雄藝術博覽會) kicks off today at Pier-2 Art Center and City Suites Hotel. Organized by the Kaohsiung City Government Bureau of Cultural Affairs and Modern Art Association of Kaohsiung, the event positions itself as “an International art fair… attract[ing] collectors from around the world to reveal the potential of Southern Taiwan.” This year, over 60 local and international galleries are participating. They include newcomer Askeri Gallery from Moscow, which is featuring the work of Moscow native Pavel Polanski, whose paintings are characterized by gray canvases occasionally punctured by vibrant hues. Gallery Moryta from Fukuoka is returning with monochromatic prints by Kouki Tsuritani, a Japanese print-maker who combines the aesthetics of traditional Japanese ukiyo-e (woodblock art) with Western printmaking techniques. Strongholds of the local art scene will be showing at the fair, including Soka Art Center and Galerie Grand Siecle. The fair will also include three curated exhibitions focusing on southern Taiwanese art, photography, virtual reality and video art. For more information, visit: www.art-kaohsiung.com.
■ Pier-2 Art Center (駁二藝術特區), 1 Dayong Rd, Kaohsiung City (高雄市大勇路1號), tel: (02) 2772-5950. Open today and Saturday from 11am to 7pm and Sunday from 11am to 6pm
■ Until Dec. 2
Photo courtesy of Taipei Fine Art Museum
Inside X-site 2014–2018 (X-site創作解密) is a retrospective of the Taipei Fine Art Museum’s outdoor landscape installation program X-site. Launched in 2014, X-site is an annual commission of architectural projects for the museum’s outdoor plaza. Over the past five years, the program has received over 150 submissions by open call. This show features the winning projects across five years of the program, as well as 26 submissions handpicked by curators Huang Wei-jung (黃威融) and Wang Shi-fang (王士芳). The creative minds behind the submissions are invited to “share the moment of inspiration behind their projects in handwritten manuscripts.” Running concurrently is a program of talks and events published on the museum’s Web site: www.tfam.museum.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (台北市立美術館), 181 Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (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
■ Until March 31
Photo courtesy of Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei
The Museum of Contemporary Art is showing an exhibition of indigenous art titled Micawor — 2018 Pulima Art Festival (翻動Micawor — 2018 Pulima藝術節). Micawor is an Amis word for turning over fertile soil, taken here as a metaphor for “embod[ying] the indigenous cultural spirit and progress of contemporary art.” The show examines indigenous mythologies, histories and heritage through the lens of contemporary art — a medium that the curators imagine “help[s] to cultivate a new vision for the world.” Exhibition highlights include Paiwan artist Sakuliu’s Lighting the Tobacco, a sculpture and light installation that speaks to the artist’s childhood in the 1960s and 70s, during which electricity was introduced to his village. According to the Museum, the work expresses Sakuliu’s “reflections on the fundamental transformation of life and culture that followed those changes in his hometown.” Australian weaver Glenda Nicholls’ installation, A Woman’s Rite of Passage, speaks to her background as an Aboriginal descendant of the Waddi Waddi, Yorta Yorta and Ngarrindjeri. The work uses soft materials such as jute, emu feathers, possum skin and wool, embellished with coins, silver chains and beads. The festival also includes a program of performances, films, seminars, talks and workshops. Details are on the museum Web site: www.mocataipei.org.tw.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art (台北當代藝術館), 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 Jan. 13
Photo courtesy of Powen Gallery
Structure and Variation (結構與變奏:日本當代雕塑展) is a group exhibition of Japanese contemporary sculpture. The show includes six artists that work with a wide spectrum of materials, including wood, paper, metal and bronze. Kishio Suga is a well-known sculptor and installation artist who is a key member of the Mono-ha, an art movement that flourished in the 1960s and 70s with experiments combining industrial and natural materials. Differentiation and Gathering is a minimalist assemblage of wood parts that beautifully resonates with its title. Sakuma Asuka works with layers of newspaper to create large, organic forms with flowing contours. Perceiving his art as a natural result of his labor, he writes: “I believe that what finally takes shape from the accumulation of things I use in my everyday life is living proof to my existence.” Tsukiyama Yuki is a Kobe-based artist whose works accentuate the essence of materials. The Village of Promise is a wooden sculptural installation that suggests the potential warmth and utility embodied in cut wood.
■ Donna Art & Consulting (多納藝術), 7F, 112 Keelung Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市基隆路二段112號7樓), tel: (02) 7746-7463. Open Mondays to Saturdays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Dec. 29
Photo courtesy of a.m. space
Lee Li-Chung (李立中) is an award-winning, Tainan-based artist known particularly for his photographic installation La Mer, which according to Powen Gallery, reconstructs “the emotion and sensibility of life” through the metaphor of the sea. The gallery and artist, who first collaborated in 2016, teamed up again this year for a solo exhibition, Look Homeward, Angel (天使望鄉). The show draws from the autobiography of American novelist Thomas Wolfe, who describes a young man that thinks dearly of his distant hometown every sleepless night. The Dark #01 is a photograph that depicts a dimly lit bedroom with an unmade bed, evoking a sense of absence. Look Homeward, Angel — Asia’s First Water and Land Amusement Park is a photograph that seems to be taken from a vehicle speeding down a highway, capturing a moment of reflection by an urban dweller.
■ Powen Gallery (紅野畫廊), 11, Ln 164, Songjiang Rd, Taipei (臺北市松江路164巷11號), tel: (02) 2523-6009. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 7pm
■ Until Dec. 16
Photo courtesy of Donna Art & Consulting
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