Atsushi Fukui and Hideaki Kawashima belong to the generation of Japanese artists following Yoshitomo Nara, whose paintings liberated Japan’s contemporary scene from Eurocentric styles and provided a renewed recognition of childhood sensibility — one that is revealed in their joint exhibit Convolvulus. Kawashima updates the Japanese tradition of bijinga (pictures of beautiful women) but with a manga-infused style all his own that infantalizes the women he depicts. Large almond-shaped eyes that glare at the viewer with a distant yet confrontational expression are set amid a ghost-white face with barely apparent eyebrows and nostrils above thick lips. By contrast, Fukui’s landscapes possess as much life as Kawashima’s women seem to lack. Fukui’s daydream-like paintings are influenced by his love of psychedelic culture and science fiction. Subjects include planets, animals and forests that refract light in a meditative and colorful glow.
■ 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). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 8pm. Tel: (02) 2577-5601
■ From Saturday until Nov. 22
Taiwan-born, New York-based artist Vivian Tsao (曹志漪) employs various approaches to light and space and a palette of middle tones in a series of realistic paintings in her solo exhibit on the fourth floor of the National Museum of History. The show also features pastel drawings and manuscripts by the prolific artist.
■ National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館), 49 Nanhai Rd, Taipei City (台北市南海路49號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Tel: (02) 2361-0270. Admission: NT$30
■ From Friday until Nov. 1
Illusional Distance (虛擬的距離) displays 17 oil paintings by Chinese artist Jiang Zhongli (姜中立). Jiang’s figurative works endow ordinary people with heroic qualities drawn from classical sculpture. Employing an impasto style, the artist builds up his characters using rich earth tones that he then highlights with whites and yellows to create canvases that exist somewhere between the present and the past.
■ Elsa Art Gallery (雲清藝術中心), 3F, 1-1 Tianmu E Rd, Taipei City (台北市天母東路1-1號3樓). Open Wednesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 7pm. Tel: (02) 2876-0386
■ Until Oct. 25
Taiwanese artist Tsai I-ju’s (蔡宜儒) solo exhibition combines contemporary ink painting techniques with other media to create abstract works that examine nature in all its fury.
■ Piao Piao Art Space (一票票藝術空間), 44 Yongkang St, Taipei City (台北市永康街44號). Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 2pm to 10pm and Sundays from 2pm to 9pm. Tel: (02) 2393-7505
■ Until Oct. 4
Sculptures of confused porky pandas, surrealist ink paintings of the human anatomy and sketches of vacant-eyed men in business suites are among the works on display in Cardinal Number, a group exhibition by Taiwanese artists Liu Je-rong (劉哲榮), Huang Yao-hsin (黃耀鑫) and Wang Ting-chao (王鼎超).
■ BF Gallery (北風藝廊), 2F, 120, Minsheng E Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市民生東路二段120號2樓). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 7pm. Tel: (02) 2561-6516
■ Until Oct. 18
The title of Chu Ko’s (楚戈) solo exhibit Artistic Creation Must Have Fun (創作就是要好玩) aptly expresses the artistic philosophy of the China-born, Taiwan-based multimedia artist. Chu’s watercolors and oil paintings infuse traditional Chinese landscape ink painting with vibrant colors. This exhibit also features some of his sculptures.
■ National Chiao Tung University Art Space (交大藝文空間), 1001 Dasyue Rd, Hsinchu City (新竹市大學路1001號). Open daily from 10am to 7pm, closes at 5pm on Saturday and Sunday. Tel: (03) 571-2121
■ Until Oct. 21
April 14 to April 20 In March 1947, Sising Katadrepan urged the government to drop the “high mountain people” (高山族) designation for Indigenous Taiwanese and refer to them as “Taiwan people” (台灣族). He considered the term derogatory, arguing that it made them sound like animals. The Taiwan Provincial Government agreed to stop using the term, stating that Indigenous Taiwanese suffered all sorts of discrimination and oppression under the Japanese and were forced to live in the mountains as outsiders to society. Now, under the new regime, they would be seen as equals, thus they should be henceforth
Last week, the the National Immigration Agency (NIA) told the legislature that more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) risked having their citizenship revoked if they failed to provide proof that they had renounced their Chinese household registration within the next three months. Renunciation is required under the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), as amended in 2004, though it was only a legal requirement after 2000. Prior to that, it had been only an administrative requirement since the Nationality Act (國籍法) was established in
With over 80 works on display, this is Louise Bourgeois’ first solo show in Taiwan. Visitors are invited to traverse her world of love and hate, vengeance and acceptance, trauma and reconciliation. Dominating the entrance, the nine-foot-tall Crouching Spider (2003) greets visitors. The creature looms behind the glass facade, symbolic protector and gatekeeper to the intimate journey ahead. Bourgeois, best known for her giant spider sculptures, is one of the most influential artist of the twentieth century. Blending vulnerability and defiance through themes of sexuality, trauma and identity, her work reshaped the landscape of contemporary art with fearless honesty. “People are influenced by
Three big changes have transformed the landscape of Taiwan’s local patronage factions: Increasing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) involvement, rising new factions and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) significantly weakened control. GREEN FACTIONS It is said that “south of the Zhuoshui River (濁水溪), there is no blue-green divide,” meaning that from Yunlin County south there is no difference between KMT and DPP politicians. This is not always true, but there is more than a grain of truth to it. Traditionally, DPP factions are viewed as national entities, with their primary function to secure plum positions in the party and government. This is not unusual
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