Ten members of the North American Pastel Artists Association present their work in Joint Pastel Exhibition (國際粉彩名家聯展), a group show of paintings employing still life, city and outdoor scenes rendered in a realist style. Established in 1997 by prolific Taiwanese pastel artist Jason Chang (張哲雄), the association’s current president and a featured artist, the collaborative seeks to raise public awareness of this relatively neglected art form. Sylvie Cabal, Fong Ling (林峰怜), Dick McEvoy and William Hosner are among the more well-known participating artists.
■ 99 Degrees Art Center (99 藝術中心) 5F, 259, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段259號5F). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm. Tel: (02) 2700-3099
■ Until April 25
Taiwanese sculptor and painter Chu Fang-yi (朱芳毅) seeks to simplify the relationship between three-dimensional objects and space in The Existence Between Memory and Dream (存在記憶與夢境之間), a series of abstract demirelief sculptures affixed to canvases and hung on walls like paintings.
■ Ever Harvest Art Gallery, 2F, 107, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段107號2樓). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6:30pm.
Tel: (02) 2752-2353
■ Until April 25
The National Museum of History has held several exhibitions by “Picasso of the East” Chang Dai-chien (張大千) over the past several years. Little, however, is known about the two teachers who exerted a formative influence on Dai, one of the 20th century’s greatest ink painters. The Mentors of Chang Dai-chien — Painting and Calligraphy of Zeng Xi and Li Ruiqing (張大千的老師—曾熙、李瑞清書畫特展) seeks to fill that gap and highlight their novel approaches to this genre by displaying 77 works of calligraphy and ink painting done by these two teacher-artists.
■ 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. General admission is NT$30
■ Until May 30
A look at the unique process of wood firing is presented in Exhibition of Anagama Pottery (陶博館穴窯柴燒成果展). When unglazed clay objects are fired in kilns that use plant material as fuel, the ash melts onto the pottery, forming a natural ash glaze of uneven thickness. This glaze often creates diverse textures because of the clay’s varying composition and different firing techniques and methods of placing the works into the kiln. The works on display were made by ceramicists, ceramics instructors, kiln owners and students.
■ Yingge Ceramics Museum (鶯歌陶瓷博物館), 200 Wenhua Rd, Yinge Township, Taipei County (台北縣鶯歌鎮文化路200號). Open daily from 9:30am to 5pm, closes at 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Tel: (02) 8677-2727
■ Until April 25
Insights into Established Prosperity: Ding Guanpeng’s Painting of “Peace for the New Year” (靜觀建福—丁觀鵬〈畫太簇始和〉) presents a Rabelaisian look at imperial Beijing through the works of Ding Guanpeng (丁觀鵬), an “Artist of the First Rank” painter under the Qianlong Emperor (乾隆帝). Ding excelled at painting Buddhist and Taoist subjects as well as figures and landscapes. This exhibition, located on the museum’s second floor, illustrates Ding’s fascination with the celebratory atmosphere that grips China’s capital city during the Lunar New Year. His paintings depict acrobats performing in front of teahouses and martial artists, tightrope walkers and plate spinners in temple plazas filled with fortune-tellers and diviners. Also on the second floor, The Ancient Art of Writing: Selections From the History of Chinese Calligraphy (筆有千秋業) offers a look at the history and development of Chinese calligraphy. From the small seal script of the Qin Dynasty (秦朝) and the clerical script of the Han Dynasty (漢朝) to the tradition of woodblock printing begun during the Song Dynasty (宋朝) and the innovative “stele school” of the Qing Dynasty (清朝), the exhibit offers a comprehensive and chronological survey of Chinese calligraphy over the past two millennia.
■ National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院), 221, Zhishan Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市至善路二段221號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm, closes at 8:30pm on Saturdays.
Tel: (02) 2881-2021
■ Until June 25
The canonical shot of an East Asian city is a night skyline studded with towering apartment and office buildings, bright with neon and plastic signage, a landscape of energy and modernity. Another classic image is the same city seen from above, in which identical apartment towers march across the city, spilling out over nearby geography, like stylized soldiers colonizing new territory in a board game. Densely populated dynamic conurbations of money, technological innovation and convenience, it is hard to see the cities of East Asia as what they truly are: necropolises. Why is this? The East Asian development model, with
June 16 to June 22 The following flyer appeared on the streets of Hsinchu on June 12, 1895: “Taipei has already fallen to the Japanese barbarians, who have brought great misery to our land and people. We heard that the Japanese occupiers will tax our gardens, our houses, our bodies, and even our chickens, dogs, cows and pigs. They wear their hair wild, carve their teeth, tattoo their foreheads, wear strange clothes and speak a strange language. How can we be ruled by such people?” Posted by civilian militia leader Wu Tang-hsing (吳湯興), it was a call to arms to retake
This is a deeply unsettling period in Taiwan. Uncertainties are everywhere while everyone waits for a small army of other shoes to drop on nearly every front. During challenging times, interesting political changes can happen, yet all three major political parties are beset with scandals, strife and self-inflicted wounds. As the ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is held accountable for not only the challenges to the party, but also the nation. Taiwan is geopolitically and economically under threat. Domestically, the administration is under siege by the opposition-controlled legislature and growing discontent with what opponents characterize as arrogant, autocratic
When Lisa, 20, laces into her ultra-high heels for her shift at a strip club in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, she knows that aside from dancing, she will have to comfort traumatized soldiers. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, exhausted troops are the main clientele of the Flash Dancers club in the center of the northeastern city, just 20 kilometers from Russian forces. For some customers, it provides an “escape” from the war, said Valerya Zavatska — a 25-year-old law graduate who runs the club with her mother, an ex-dancer. But many are not there just for the show. They “want to talk about what hurts,” she
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