Eslite Gallery presents The Universe in a Grain of Dust (世界微塵裡), a retrospective of the late Taiwanese painter Lee An-cheng (李安成). Lee grew up around an elder brother who was keen on fostering an appreciation of the arts among his younger siblings. In their household, materials for painting and calligraphy were readily available, while Lee showed promising talent in both areas at an early age. Lee’s 1987 debut solo exhibition garnered considerable attention in ink art circles. Despite being trained in traditional techniques, Lee showed little interest in copying past styles and showed originality and modern spirit. He drew from his own lived experiences, including childhood memories and observations of his surrounding environment. Lee enjoyed a career of several stylistic phases, from early figures and landscapes works to later years of free, wild brushstrokes that express a sense of artistic freedom. The exhibition includes works entrusted by the artist to the gallery.
■ Eslite Gallery (誠品畫廊), 5F, 11 Songgao Rd, Taipei City (台北市松高路11號5樓), tel: (02) 8789-3388. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Starts tomorrow. Until Oct. 13
Photo Courtesy of Eslite Gallery
Over the last four years, Galerie Nichido Taipei has maintained an ongoing program of guest-curated shows that encourage deeper cultural exchange between Japan and Taiwan. A new show curated by Guo Jau-lan (郭昭蘭) opens tomorrow. Rotating Exploded View Diagram of Historiography (旋轉歷史編撰學的爆炸圖) is a group exhibition that seeks to present art in the context of a historical mapping. Referencing a schematic diagram style called exploded view, in which components are rendered in a deconstructed three dimensional model, Guo sees the exhibition as an analytical space where relationships and order are emphasized. Show highlights include Hotel Edgar Quintet, a painting of a Parisian hotel by prominent 20th century Japanese artist Leonard Tsuguharu Foujita. Taipei-based artist Au Sow-yee (區秀詒) presents an extension of her 2018 work, Nanyang Intelligence Bureau (南洋情報交換所) that focuses on power relations between Japan, Taiwan, countries of the ASEAN group and the politics that concern their surrounding seas.
■ Galerie Nichido Taipei (台北日動畫廊), 3F, 57, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段57號3樓), tel: (02) 2579-8795. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 11am to 7pm
■ Starts tomorrow. Until Oct. 20
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Presently on view at Tina Keng Gallery is a solo exhibition by Lin Ju (林鉅). Lin is known for his distinct painting style that often shows obscure or mysterious symbols adapted from various world religions and myths. Flowing Reformation (九節拂風) draws its Chinese title from Buddhist breathing exercises that the artist practices, and involves nine cycles of breathing. This method is related to ideas of self-generation and immortality, a central theme in Lin’s artistic practice. “Twice I’ve come into this world,” he once said. “Chaotic the first time, estranged the second.” A selection of works inspired by Lin’s recent encounter of Sanyu’s (常玉) paintings last year at the gallery will be on display. These works are double sided, showing a painting on one side of the canvas and drafts and drawings on the other, which, when combined, reveal an intriguing process of thought and action.
■ 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 Oct. 6
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Huang Hua-chen (黃華真) is a Taipei-based painter and lecturer whose recent works convey her spiritual contemplations based on the Christian faith. Her solo exhibition, In Wilderness: Beam Through the Dust (曠野的溫柔), at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum includes works that reference stories from the Old Testament. Huang examines biblical anecdotes to examine her own doubt, anger and fatigue, and how has art helped her mediate such periods of struggles and transformation.
■ 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 Nov. 3
Photo Courtesy of Tina Keng Gallery
Sera Chen (陳郁文) creates video installations, photographs and new media works that explore the dynamics and relationships between man, nature and society. Her solo exhibition, Everyday Fictionality: Beholding Shadows of Illusion (日常的虛構重建:虛與實的感知體系), features a video installation that reveals an interplay between readymade objects, virtual objects and appropriated objects, as well as an encounter between computer rendered realities and physical spaces. The show examines the changing definitions of nature, artificiality, reality and simulation.
■ 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 Nov. 3
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
By far the most jarring of the new appointments for the incoming administration is that of Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) to head the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF). That is a huge demotion for one of the most powerful figures in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Tseng has one of the most impressive resumes in the party. He was very active during the Wild Lily Movement and his generation is now the one taking power. He has served in many of the requisite government, party and elected positions to build out a solid political profile. Elected as mayor of Taoyuan as part of the
Moritz Mieg, 22, lay face down in the rubble, the ground shaking violently beneath him. Boulders crashed down around him, some stones hitting his back. “I just hoped that it would be one big hit and over, because I did not want to be hit nearly to death and then have to slowly die,” the student from Germany tells Taipei Times. MORNING WALK Early on April 3, Mieg set out on a scenic hike through Taroko Gorge in Hualien County (花蓮). It was a fine day for it. Little did he know that the complex intersection of tectonic plates Taiwan sits
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