Chen Chieh-jen (陳界仁), Wu Tien-chang (吳天章), Daido Moriyama and Shomei Tomatsu are among 16 photographers showing their work in Documented, Doubted and Imagined Realities: Contemporary Photography From Japan and Taiwan (真實,試煉與魔幻:台日當代攝影聯展). Curated by Rudy Tseng (曾文泉), the exhibition of 70 photographs takes the end of World War II as its starting point and explores social, cultural and political issues in both countries.
■ Yi&C Contemporary Art (易雅居當代空間), 22, Ln 252, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段252巷22號), tel: (02) 2781-3131. Open Mondays to Fridays from 10am to 7pm and Saturdays and Sundays from 2pm to 6pm
■ Opening reception on Friday at 6pm. Until Sept. 23
Photo Courtesy of Yi&C Contemporary Arts Gallery
Ours. Karaoke is a video installation by Yu Cheng -da (余政達). Yu used a webcam to film his friends engaged in all manner of spontaneous and amusing performances at karaoke clubs.
■ 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), tel: (02) 8771-3372. Open Tuesdays through Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opening reception on Friday at 3pm. Until Sept. 30
Photo Courtesy of Yi&C Contemporary Arts Gallery
1+1: A Cross Straight, Four Regions Artistic Exchange Project (1+1. 兩岸四地藝術交流計劃) pairs up 16 emerging artists from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and Macau. The dialogue between artists from different regions is used as a starting point to examine issues of gender, identity, place and culture.
■ Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館), 1 Xueyuan Rd, Taipei City (台北市學園路1號), tel: (02) 2893-8870. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm
■ Until Sept. 25
US artist Candice Ivy examines the imprints that different communities in Taiwan make on the landscape in Feral, a solo show of drawings in which she examines “Taiwan’s contemporary approaches to ‘green’ architecture,” according to her artist’s statement.
■ 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), tel: (02) 3393-7377. Open Wednesday to Sunday from 11am to 9pm
■ Opening reception tonight at 7pm. Until Sunday
Fifteen commissioned works highlight British architecture, fashion and product design since the 1960s in Super Contemporary — Designed in London, which charts defining creative moments in the UK. Participants include fashion designers Paul Smith and Wayne Hamingway, Pritzker Prize-winner Zaha Hadid, product designers Ron Arad and Tom Dixon, and Thomas Heatherwick, who designed the UK Pavilion for last year’s Shanghai World Expo.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (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), tel: (02) 2595-7656. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:30am to 5:30pm, and until 8:30pm on Saturdays. Admission: NT$30
■ Opens on Friday. Until Nov. 27
Lin Pey-chwen (林珮淳) questions the use of genetic technology to create “unnatural artificial life” in Eve Clone Series II (夏娃克隆系列 II). The bizarre, though skillfully rendered, sculptural installations of body parts were inspired by the Book of Genesis.
■ 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), tel: (02) 2578-5630. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm
■ Until Sept. 1
Nine Taiwanese nervously stand on an observation platform at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport. It’s 9:20am on March 27, 1968, and they are awaiting the arrival of Liu Wen-ching (柳文卿), who is about to be deported back to Taiwan where he faces possible execution for his independence activities. As he is removed from a minibus, a tenth activist, Dai Tian-chao (戴天昭), jumps out of his hiding place and attacks the immigration officials — the nine other activists in tow — while urging Liu to make a run for it. But he’s pinned to the ground. Amid the commotion, Liu tries to
The slashing of the government’s proposed budget by the two China-aligned parties in the legislature, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), has apparently resulted in blowback from the US. On the recent junket to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, KMT legislators reported that they were confronted by US officials and congressmen angered at the cuts to the defense budget. The United Daily News (UDN), the longtime KMT party paper, now KMT-aligned media, responded to US anger by blaming the foreign media. Its regular column, the Cold Eye Collection (冷眼集), attacked the international media last month in
A pig’s head sits atop a shelf, tufts of blonde hair sprouting from its taut scalp. Opposite, its chalky, wrinkled heart glows red in a bubbling vat of liquid, locks of thick dark hair and teeth scattered below. A giant screen shows the pig draped in a hospital gown. Is it dead? A surgeon inserts human teeth implants, then hair implants — beautifying the horrifyingly human-like animal. Chang Chen-shen (張辰申) calls Incarnation Project: Deviation Lovers “a satirical self-criticism, a critique on the fact that throughout our lives we’ve been instilled with ideas and things that don’t belong to us.” Chang
Feb. 10 to Feb. 16 More than three decades after penning the iconic High Green Mountains (高山青), a frail Teng Yu-ping (鄧禹平) finally visited the verdant peaks and blue streams of Alishan described in the lyrics. Often mistaken as an indigenous folk song, it was actually created in 1949 by Chinese filmmakers while shooting a scene for the movie Happenings in Alishan (阿里山風雲) in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), recounts director Chang Ying (張英) in the 1999 book, Chang Ying’s Contributions to Taiwanese Cinema and Theater (打鑼三響包得行: 張英對台灣影劇的貢獻). The team was meant to return to China after filming, but