Wang Te-yu (王德瑜) works with space to create situations that meditate on the relationship between subject and object, body sensory experiences and consciousness. Since 1990 Wang has been working with different fabrics to produce an ongoing series of spatial creations that encourage the viewer’s participation. Her solo exhibition, No. 98, at Project Fulfill Art Space (就在藝術空間) is a continuation of this series, which features a large installation of the same title. The work invites viewers to climb up a gentle slope and appreciate the gallery space from different heights. No. 98 is inspired by the artist’s stay at Scotland’s Glenfiddich Artists in Residency Program last year. “The surrounding woods, the thick soft grass… along the mountain ridge a row of wind turbines turn silently; I sit alone on the hillside opening my senses to the living force of nature,” writes the artist. While preparing for the creation of No. 98, Wang organized almost 3,000 photographs of the Scottish landscape. For Wang, each photo triggers memories of a site that can be only detected by bodily sensations, such as temperature, light and smells. The artist grew particularly interested in the photos that were similar to those taken by previous residency artists. The idea of roads that were previously taken manifest ideas of shared memories, a repetition of gestures and connections between people from different times.
■ Project Fulfill Art Space (就在藝術空間), 2, Alley 45, Ln 147, Xinyi Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市信義路三段147巷45弄2號), tel: (02) 2707-6942. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm
■ Until April 18
Photo Courtesy of John Paulo
Liang Gallery (尊彩藝術中心) presents A Scene like Poetry (如詩的光景), a solo exhibition by award-winning Taiwanese artist Wu Chien-yi (吳芊頤). Wu creates two-dimensional Japanese (washi) paper collages as well as mixed-media installations that examine consumerist society. In the last couple years, Wu has been creating a series of collaged paintings inspired by Taiwan’s unique landscape. Window grill designs, cultural symbols, architectural patterns and commercial products are reassembled to create a sense of strangeness that allows the viewer to examine the familiar from a new perspective. These paintings provide insight into Taiwan’s history and culture by deconstructing its visual landscape, says the artist. Mirror III Ansu Hall is a robust landscape of luscious colors framed by a rigid diamond grill pattern. Mirror II Fengtian Temple is a more open composition of multi-color feathered birds and animals viewed through the perspective of two square grill frames. The animated creatures are loosely suggested by paper stripes that waver between assembly and disintegration.
■ Liang Gallery (尊彩藝術中心), 366, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路366號), tel: (02) 2797-1100. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm
■ Until March 31
Photo Courtesy of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts
Lee Yen-hua (李燕華) maintains a cross-disciplinary practice that includes pictography, architecture, sociology, philosophy and aesthetics. Since 2006, Lee has been exploring the medium of the book — the way we read them, the very nature of books as an intellectual object and the textural structures it contains. As a collector of antique books, the artist responds to each volume in her collection with an original language comprised of visual symbols and images based on her own life experiences. These responses are notations of her journey through each book and contain the traces of memory and encounters as a reader. Lee’s solo exhibition, Searching for: Spiritual home series (找尋內心的家系列), at Galerie Grand Siecle (新苑藝術) is an extension of her book project, in which she seeks to discover new possibilities of experimenting between art, space and memory. Inspired by her family background and the environment in which she was raised, the exhibition features abstract silhouettes of people and place, connected by arrays of silk thread. The thread illustrates paths of illumination that symbolically shed light on the artist’s memories.
■ Galerie Grand Siecle (新苑藝術), 17, Alley 51, Ln 12, Bade Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市八德路三段12巷51弄17號), tel: (02) 2578-5630. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm
■ Until March 22
Photo Courtesy of Galerie Grand Siecle
National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立台灣美術館) presents Contours (舞·界·線), a project by performance group Dancecology (舞蹈生態系創意團隊). Founded in 2009, the group creates performances, visual art, films and installations that realize their vision of a holistic relationship between man and nature. Dancecology works beyond the traditional constructs of theater and creates site-specific productions that attempt to eliminate the distance between the audience and actor. Contours is a 360 degree dance film that follows an abstract narrative between nature and humans. The film is shot at Lake George, an ancient lake in New South Wales, Australia, that is known for its strange patterns of high and low tides. Interpreting the cosmic energies of the lake, a diverse group of dancers express through abstract movements ecological ideas such as circulation, symbiosis, nourishment and cultivation.
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立台灣美術館), 2, Wuquan W Rd Sec 1, Taichung City (台中市五權西路一段2號), tel: (04) 2373-3552. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 9am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm.
■ Until April 28
Photo Courtesy of White Stone Gallery
Back to Originality and Simplicity: Japanese Contemporary Ink Exhibition Part 2 (返璞歸真: 日本當代水墨展 Part 2) is the second phase of White Stone Gallery’s (白石畫廊) exhibition series focused on ink art masters from Japan. Ink art originates in China and has been adopted and cultivated with various cultural interpretations throughout Asia. According to the gallery, it is a distinct cultural code of the Asian region and a symbol of Eastern aesthetics. Japanese ink art began in the Kamakura period (12th to 14th centuries). The exhibition presents post war to contemporary ink art from Japan, a period marked by a refusal of strong colors and representational landscape. Japanese ink art is characterized by simple contours that create pronounced abstract space with unique aesthetics. The exhibition focuses on artists from the Gutai group, a radical postwar collective that rejected traditional aesthetics and explored the body and matter with performances and installations. The show highlights the works of eight representative Gutai artists, including Kazuo Shiraga’s radical action paintings, Kiro Uehara’s erase-prints and Rogen Ebihara’s poetic calligraphy.
■ 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 March 24
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
A sultry sea mist blankets New Taipei City as I pedal from Tamsui District (淡水) up the coast. This might not be ideal beach weather but it’s fine weather for riding –– the cloud cover sheltering arms and legs from the scourge of the subtropical sun. The dedicated bikeway that connects downtown Taipei with the west coast of New Taipei City ends just past Fisherman’s Wharf (漁人碼頭) so I’m not the only cyclist jostling for space among the SUVs and scooters on National Highway No. 2. Many Lycra-clad enthusiasts are racing north on stealthy Giants and Meridas, rounding “the crown coast”
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