Time Unfrozen — From Liu Guo-song to New Media Art (白駒過隙山動水行—從劉國松到新媒體藝術) examines the temporal, spatial and psychological connections between new media art and contemporary thought. Utilizing mature art forms such as light, sound, new technology, video and installation, as well as avant-garde modalities such as virtual reality and co-intelligence, 19 collaborative teams were brought together to explore Eastern aesthetics, particularly the relationship between humanity and nature.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM — 台北市立美術館), 181, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市中山北路三段181號). Open daily from 9:30am to 5:30pm, closes at 9:30pm on Saturdays. Tel: (02) 2595-7656
■ Begins Saturday. Until Jan. 2
PHOTO COURTESY OF TFAM
South Korean sculptor Park Seung Mo presents a new series of sculptures in a solo exhibit at Ever Harvest Gallery. Park continues his tradition of wrapping aluminum and copper wire around objects, such as a bicycle or piano, which makes the original form less insignificant while retaining its essence.
■ 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. Admission: Free until Nov. 26
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until Nov. 7
PHOTO COURTESY OF TFAM
Grace Wawa Yang (楊后瑜) looks back at the freedom of childhood with In Between (曖), a solo exhibit that consists of two series of photographs — Memento Mori (2008) and Realm of Play — Reverie (2009-2010) — and a video installation. Yang’s work is intended to return the viewer to childhood, a time associated with freedom and fun, but also when we learn about rules and boundaries by testing them.
■ Sakshi Gallery (夏可喜當代藝術), 33 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街33號). Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 1:30pm to 9:30pm, Sundays from 1:30pm to 7:30pm. Tel: (02) 2516-5386
■ Until Nov. 7
PHOTO COURTESY OF EVER HARVEST GALLERY
Just when you thought that the Polaroid camera was relegated to the dustbin of archaic technologies, the folks from the company came up with a new monochrome film, PX Silver Shade, which it released earlier this year. A series of images made by three Taiwanese photographers using the film are currently on display in an exhibit titled Impossible. The images take Taiwan as the main subject — a wedding banquet, for example, or a seascape.
■ Taiwan International Visual Arts Center (台灣國際視覺藝術中心), 29, Ln 45 Liaoning St, Taipei City (台北市遼寧街45巷29號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6pm. Tel: (02) 2773-3347
■ Until Nov. 14
Infinity of Chi is a retrospective exhibit of China-born, Taiwan-raised and Italy-based artist Hsiao Chin (蕭勤). Hsiao, the winner of the 2002 National Fine Art Prize (國家文藝獎), studied abstract painting and was a prominent advocate of the avant-garde wave of Taiwanese modern art during the 1950s. Hsiao’s art contains both the distinctive style of modern art, as well as the profound philosophical influence of the East.
■ Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, 80 Meishuguan Rd, Kaohsiung City (高雄市美術館路80號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm. Tel: (07) 555 0331. Admission is NT$200, NT$150 for seniors and students
■ Until March 13
Paintings, calligraphy, antiquities and rare books form Dynastic Renaissance: Art and Culture of the Southern Song (文藝紹興－南宋藝術與文化特展), a wide-ranging exhibit that is displayed in 10 galleries on the first and second floor of the National Palace Museum. In four sections — Cultural Invigoration, Artistic Innovation, Life Aesthetics and Transmission and Fusion — the exhibit seeks to reveal how the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) employed innovative artistic tastes and aesthetic ideas to perpetuate its rule. [See story opposite.]
■ 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. Admission is NT$160, NT$80 for students
■ Until Dec. 26
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,
Toward the outside edge of Taichung City, in Wufeng District (霧峰去), sits a sprawling collection of single-story buildings with tiled roofs belonging to the Wufeng Lin (霧峰林家) family, who rose to prominence through success in military, commercial, and artistic endeavors in the 19th century. Most of these buildings have brick walls and tiled roofs in the traditional reddish-brown color, but in the middle is one incongruous property with bright white walls and a black tiled roof: Yipu Garden (頤圃). Purists may scoff at the Japanese-style exterior and its radical departure from the Fujianese architectural style of the surrounding buildings. However, the property
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