Celebrated for his 2005 photo series of whale sharks being slaughtered at a fishing port in Yilan County, Shen Chao-liang (沈昭良) takes his camera on to dry land with Stage: Illusion Reality (幻影現實), a series of photos of makeshift stages and the temple environments where they are placed. The images, snapped at rural and urban areas throughout central and southern Taiwan, are bereft of people and props, suggesting that the traditional forms of entertainment common to temple festivals are increasingly becoming a thing of the past.
■ Aki Gallery (也趣), 141 Minzu W Rd, Taipei City
(台北市民族西路141號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6:30pm. Tel: (02) 2599-1171
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until Oct. 2
Photography, installation, drawing and documentary videos are brought together in Reflection (反射), a solo exhibition on prolific and respected Chinese artist Zhan Wang (展望), which runs the gamut of the 48-year-old artist’s career. Zhan, however, is mostly famous for his stainless steel sculptures that replicate rock formations, a number of which will be on display. The exhibition is complemented by a public exhibition of Artificial Rock No. 59 (假山石#59), a towering work that is on display at Taipei 101, and Artificial Rock No. 125 (假山石#125) outside the Xinyi Eslite Store (誠品信義店) in Taipei.
■ Eslite Gallery (誠品畫廊), 5F, 11 Songgao Rd, Taipei City (台北市松高路11號5F). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm. Tel: (02) 8789-3388 X1588
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until Oct. 3
Bamboo Curtain Studio, a multi-functional art and performance space, is celebrating its 15th anniversary with a retrospective exhibition on the works of 15 artists who have lived or worked at the venue since its inception. The exhibit’s title is Aesthetics at the Edge: An Alternative Way for Creativity. The artists include Tsong Pu (莊普), the “godfather of Taiwanese installation art,” muralist Michael Lin (林明宏) and Kuo Wei-kuo (郭維國), creator of psychologically rich and haunting surrealist oil paintings. The selected artists were also chosen to illustrate the evolution of Taiwan’s art scene over the past 15 years.
■ Bamboo Curtain Studio (竹圍工作室), 39, Ln 88, Jhongjheng E Rd Sec 2, Tamsui Township, Taipei County (台北縣淡水鎮中正東路二段88巷39號). Tel: (02) 8809-3809
■ Opening reception on Sunday at 7pm. Until Oct. 10
Hold Down: Interdisciplinary Interactive Performance (Hold Down互動跨領域演出) brings together artists from Taiwan, Thailand, France and Spain in an interdisciplinary work of conceptual performance art. The exhibit/performance integrates interactive performance, installation art and digital music “to explore a more liberal artistic language.” The performances last 60 minutes.
■ Barry Room, Taipei Artist Village (台北國際藝術村百里廳), 7 Beiping E Rd, Taipei City (台北市北平東路7號). For more details call Ms Chen at (02) 3393-7377X407
■ Friday at 7:30pm and Saturday and Sunday at 2:30pm. Tickets are NT$150 and are available at
the door
Kaikai Kiki Gallery’s Contemporary Art in West (西方藝術的世界) brings together 14 contemporary artists from Europe, Japan and North America working in sculpture and painting. The paintings and sculptures on display hail from the collection of Takashi Murakami and the gallery.
■ Kaikai Kiki Gallery, 2, Chongqing S Rd, Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市重慶南路一段2號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 10pm. Tel: (02) 2382-0328
■ Until Oct. 3
Burgeoning artists Chang Huei-ming (張暉明) and Liao Chi-yu (廖祈羽) are presenting their first post-Art Taipei show, Never Give Up — The New World, a manga-inspired serial created by the duo in 2009 that centers around two fictional characters: Mimi and Lucy. Digital photography, sculpture and single/multi-channel video are brought together to create fantasy worlds that are meant to serve as projections of real-life situations.
■ VT Art Salon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, 47 Yitong St, Zhongshan Dist, Taipei City (台北市中山區伊通街47號地下一樓). Open Tuesdays to Thursdays from 2pm to 11pm and Fridays and Saturdays from 2pm to 1am. Tel: (02) 2516-1060
■ Until Sept. 18
The Mirror of Time (時代的鏡子) offers a brief taste of the work of four figurative painters from China, born after 1975: Wei Jia (韋嘉), Song Kun (宋琨), Chen Ke (陳可) and Jai Aili (賈藹力). The artists place their subjects in seascapes and landscapes, imbuing the canvases with a dreamy visual language that evokes a sense of otherness.
■ 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
■ Until Oct. 10
Following the shock complete failure of all the recall votes against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers on July 26, pan-blue supporters and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were giddy with victory. A notable exception was KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), who knew better. At a press conference on July 29, he bowed deeply in gratitude to the voters and said the recalls were “not about which party won or lost, but were a great victory for the Taiwanese voters.” The entire recall process was a disaster for both the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The only bright spot for
Last week, on the heels of the recall election that turned out so badly for Taiwan, came the news that US President Donald Trump had blocked the transit of President William Lai (賴清德) through the US on his way to Latin America. A few days later the international media reported that in June a scheduled visit by Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) for high level meetings was canceled by the US after China’s President Xi Jinping (習近平) asked Trump to curb US engagement with Taiwan during a June phone call. The cancellation of Lai’s transit was a gaudy
As last month dawned, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in a good position. The recall campaigns had strong momentum, polling showed many Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers at risk of recall and even the KMT was bracing for losing seats while facing a tsunami of voter fraud investigations. Polling pointed to some of the recalls being a lock for victory. Though in most districts the majority was against recalling their lawmaker, among voters “definitely” planning to vote, there were double-digit margins in favor of recall in at least five districts, with three districts near or above 20 percent in
From Godzilla’s fiery atomic breath to post-apocalyptic anime and harrowing depictions of radiation sickness, the influence of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki runs deep in Japanese popular culture. In the 80 years since the World War II attacks, stories of destruction and mutation have been fused with fears around natural disasters and, more recently, the Fukushima crisis. Classic manga and anime series Astro Boy is called “Mighty Atom” in Japanese, while city-leveling explosions loom large in other titles such as Akira, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Attack on Titan. “Living through tremendous pain” and overcoming trauma is a recurrent theme in Japan’s
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