LV Forest (LV森林) is a solo exhibition by Chinese video artist Bu Hua (卜樺). The animated video of the exhibit’s title employs a surreal and intentionally artificial visual language meant to underscore the rampant materialism gripping China’s urban inhabitants. The LV in the title is an unambiguous reference to the fashion label and here serves as a symbol for what the artist perceives as the increasingly superficial standards that people expect in relationships, an ideal whereby a woman exchanges her body for symbols of wealth. The exhibition also features other animated videos by Bu, as well as digital prints.
■ Chi-Wen Gallery (其玟畫廊), 3F, 19, Ln 252, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段252巷19號3樓). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm. Tel: (02) 8771-3372
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until Oct. 31
Wang Chi-sui (王綺穗) plays with perspective in her series of new landscape paintings Condensed Matter (凝態). The paintings suggest that regardless of how close we move towards the works, their intrinsic meaning is always beyond our grasp — an emblem, perhaps, of the self.
■ Jia Art Gallery (家畫廊), 1F-1, 30, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市中山北路三段30號1樓之1). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Tel: (02) 2591-4302
■ Until Oct. 10
National flags, maps and music form Universes in Universe (世界中的世界), a solo exhibit by installation and video artist Yu Cheng-ta (余政達). Yu, who sees himself as a kind of artistic anthropologist, accumulates and then arranges geographical and historical detritus throughout the gallery space to examine the nature of individuals and the countries within which they live.
* Galerie Grand Siecle (新苑藝術), 17, Alley 51, Ln 12, Bade Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市八德路三段12巷51弄17號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm. Tel: (02) 2578-5630
■ Until Sunday
Juin Shieh (謝鴻均) has decorated Sakshi Gallery’s walls with hundreds of variously sized circular and oval-shaped tissue paper in decorative patterns that resemble vines. The on-site installation, Immanence (囿), purports to examine the nature of women, where each work peels away the surface beauty to expose the trauma underneath. “[L]osing oneself in the creative process,” Shieh writes in the exhibition blurb, “all negative burdens that come with being a woman fade away; only the repetitive processes of creating and pondering about curtains and wallpaper remain.”
■ Sakshi Gallery (夏可喜當代藝術), 33 Yitong Street, Taipei City (台北市伊通街33號). Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 1:30pm to 9:30pm and Sundays from 1:30pm to 7:30pm. Tel: (02) 2516-5386
■ Until Oct. 3
Dance of Knife and Stone (刀舞石飛) is a solo exhibit of seal carvings by Kao Lian-yong (高連永). The show is organized around four major themes, which include the styles of carving, for example low relief, and the content, such as poems, found therein. Kao’s more than 40 years of dedication to seal engraving is evident in his bold, firm and intense carving style in which the knife seems to move freely of its own volition, while the individual characters retain the refinement, dignity and power of calligraphy.
■ 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 Nov. 14
The debate over whether computer games are an art form is revisited in Fights, Flights, & Frights — Inside the Storm (大玩．特玩 — 遊戲美學), an exhibition of paintings, sketches and models culled from three popular games: StarCraft, Diablo and Warcraft. Each of the three games exhibit different aspects of a genre — science fiction, horror and fantasy — and the museum space has been arranged to transport viewers to the fantasy worlds depicted in these games. Are computer games art? Who knows, but the setup of this exhibition makes it worthwhile — especially for gamers.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA, Taipei), 39 Changan W Rd, Taipei City (台北市長安西路39號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Tel: (02) 2552-3720. Admission: NT$50
■ Until Oct. 10
March 10 to March 16 Although it failed to become popular, March of the Black Cats (烏貓進行曲) was the first Taiwanese record to have “pop song” printed on the label. Released in March 1929 under Eagle Records, a subsidiary of the Japanese-owned Columbia Records, the Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) lyrics followed the traditional seven characters per verse of Taiwanese opera, but the instrumentation was Western, performed by Eagle’s in-house orchestra. The singer was entertainer Chiu-chan (秋蟾). In fact, a cover of a Xiamen folk song by Chiu-chan released around the same time, Plum Widow Missing Her Husband (雪梅思君), enjoyed more
Last week Elbridge Colby, US President Donald Trump’s nominee for under secretary of defense for policy, a key advisory position, said in his Senate confirmation hearing that Taiwan defense spending should be 10 percent of GDP “at least something in that ballpark, really focused on their defense.” He added: “So we need to properly incentivize them.” Much commentary focused on the 10 percent figure, and rightly so. Colby is not wrong in one respect — Taiwan does need to spend more. But the steady escalation in the proportion of GDP from 3 percent to 5 percent to 10 percent that advocates
A series of dramatic news items dropped last month that shed light on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attitudes towards three candidates for last year’s presidential election: Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) founder Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), Terry Gou (郭台銘), founder of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), and New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). It also revealed deep blue support for Ko and Gou from inside the KMT, how they interacted with the CCP and alleged election interference involving NT$100 million (US$3.05 million) or more raised by the
More than 100,000 people were killed in a single night 80 years ago yesterday in the US firebombing of Tokyo, the Japanese capital. The attack, made with conventional bombs, destroyed downtown Tokyo and filled the streets with heaps of charred bodies. The damage was comparable to the atomic bombings a few months later in August 1945, but unlike those attacks, the Japanese government has not provided aid to victims and the events of that day have largely been ignored or forgotten. Elderly survivors are making a last-ditch effort to tell their stories and push for financial assistance and recognition. Some are speaking
RSS