Musica Mobile, a Poetics of Sound and Movement (聲動) is a group exhibition of audiovisual works co-organized by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (台北市立美術館) and National Center of Musical Creation in Lyon. Curator James Giroudon brings together 28 artists from Taiwan and abroad to explore the question: “How does movement transverse through space and time?” Over the centuries, there have been many artists who have explored ideas concerning movement — the developments of futurism, cubism and optical art of the 20th century, for example, continue to influence the arts. Pascal Frament’s Like a Point is an installation that projects words by French scholar Blaise Pascal onto the visitors palm. Lee Ming-wei’s (李明維) The Quartet Project (四重奏計畫) is another interactive work that plays 19th century Czech composer Antonin Dvorak’s quartet American. A collaborative project between French artists Stephane Borrel, Christophe Lebreton and RANDOM (lab), Smartland-Divertimento, consists of a cluster of cellphones listening, responding and glowing in the dark. A phone application is available for download, which allows the audience to engage with the devices on view.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (台北市立美術館 TFAM), 181, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei (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 July 14
Photo Courtesy of Tina Keng Gallery
The Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館) presents Pacific Pirate (太平洋海盜), a collaborative project between Writing FACTory, a research-based project initiated by Taiwanese artist Chang Wen-hsuan (張紋瑄) and RRD, a Mexico City-based independent platform for the production and distribution of printed and audiovisual content. The two groups examine the shared histories of Taiwan and Mexico — both are colonial countries and have a complex history with a powerful neighbor. Re-DBT is a collection of over a hundred videos that were submitted by open call from Taiwan, Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand and Brazil. These videos vary in length, genre and degree of originality. #PiratePirateManifesto is an installation of documents and video that address the idea of freedom in the context of today’s copyright regulations.
■ Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館), 1 Xueyuan Rd, Taipei City (台北市學園路1號), tel: (02) 2896-1000 X 2432. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm
■ Until June 30
Photo Courtesy of White Stone Gallery Taipei
GUTAI-JIN in Taipei (具體人在台北) at Whitestone Gallery is a group exhibition of the post-war Japanese art group Gutai Art Association. Founded in 1954, the radical collective aimed to go beyond abstraction, to abandon traditional art and to “present concrete proof that our spirit is free,” writes the exhibition press release. Led by artist Jiro Yoshihara, Gutai created installations, performances and theatrical events in search of a new art language. Jiro’s motto, “Do what has never been done before,” exerted a strong influence on the group and the spirit of Gutai continued to thrive in the individual artists despite the group’s dissolution in 1974. The title of the show, which literally translates to Gutai-person, encapsulates the long-lasting impact of the group on 12 of the artists in the exhibition. Tsuyoshi Maekawa, a protege of Jiro Yoshihara, is known for painting on and manipulating jute rice bag surfaces with enamel and other materials. The late Shozo Shimamoto was a co-founder of Gutai known for his contributions in mail art, a genre that involves sending artworks through the postal service.
■ 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 May 12
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Fine Art Museum
Wearing Asia — The Exchange and Creation of Textiles (穿上亞洲-織物的交流與想像) is currently on view at the southern branch of The National Palace Museum. The exhibition includes fabrics and wardrobes in the museum collection, including selections from China, Japan, Tibet, India and Indonesia. These artifacts demonstrate different styles of each cultural region, including various techniques of spinning, dyeing and ornamentation. For example, China was known for its mastery of smooth silk, while India produced premium quality dyed cotton fabrics that became popular worldwide. The exhibition not only highlights the originality of various textile cultures, it also offers insight into the cross-regional exchanges achieved through the flow of trade. Batik Lower Body Wrapper with Design of Cloud on a Red Ground is a 20th century Indonesian textile that features repeating patterns of Chinese-style clouds. The detailed work includes different shades of color and gradation techniques to achieve a three-dimensional illusion. The piece is from Cirebon, a northern port in Java, where motifs such as clouds, rocks, dragons and phoenixes are typically found on local batik cotton fabric.
■ Southern branch of the National Palace Museum(國立故宮博物院南部院區), 888 Gugong Blvd Taibao City, Chiayi County (嘉義縣太保市故宮大道888號), tel: (06) 362-0777. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm
■ Until July 28
Photo Courtesy of Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts
For Hong Kong artist Ying Hung (洪少瑛), art making is a continuous process of exploring ideas around culture and identity, addressing sociocultural issues of the past and present. Mind and Matter: Derivation — Ying Hung Solo Exhibition (神思物遊) is her latest solo exhibition organized by Tina Keng Gallery. The title refers to a 5th Century Chinese text, The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (文心雕龍), by Liu Xie (劉勰), where he explores human emotions and their impact of art. Hung’s exhibition also responds to the creative process and its connection to spirituality. Drawing inspiration from the history of human civilization, natural landscapes and the values that they allude to, such as strength, transcendence and eternity.
■ Tina Keng Gallery (耿畫廊), 15, Ln 548, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路548巷15號), tel: (02) 2659-0798. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 7pm
■ Until May 26
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Fine Art Museum
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist