Beyond Gazing: Communion with the Permanent Collection (凝望之外／典藏對語) brings together 50 works from the museum’s permanent collection spanning the past century and includes painting, sculpture and installation. Broken down into seven sections, it includes people, words, symbols, landscape and flora and fauna as its major themes. The exhibition’s raison d’etre is to “underscore the graphic language embodied and their artistic significance and cultural symbolism,” the museum states in its introductory blurb.
■ 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), tel: (02) 2595-7656. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:30am to 5:30pm and until 8:30pm on Saturdays. Admission: NT$30
■ Begins Saturday
Photo courtesy of TFAM
Confused, Not Confused? (惑不惑之抽象不抽象) is a group exhibition of contemporary art from Japan, Taiwan and China that runs the gamut of expressionist painting, surreal sculpture and graffiti-like illustration — all with a kitschy “animamix” aesthetic sensibility.
■ Metaphysical Art Gallery (形而上畫廊), 7F, 219, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段219號7樓), tel: (02) 2711-0055. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6:30pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until June 15
Photo courtesy of Metaphysical Art Gallery
Chinese artist Wang Tiande (王天德) brings the classical tradition of literati landscape painting into the contemporary world with Lonely Mountain (孤山), his first solo exhibition in Taiwan. Wang, known for his “baptism by fire” mountain-water paintings made from cigarette ash, returns to the genres of his literati roots with a series of ink wash paintings inspired by monumental calligraphy steles, which he then complements with mountain-water paintings made with the ashes of burnt incense.
■ Nou Gallery (新畫廊), 232, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段232號), tel: (02) 2700-0239. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 7pm. Until July 23
Chen Sung-chih (陳松志) returns to Project Fulfill Art Space with a new series of installations that move beyond his previous glass and sand works, while retaining an abstract expressionist visual language using compound material with wood being the key element. The gallery will hold a panel discussion on Chen’s work on Saturday beginning at 3pm.
■ Project Fulfill Art Space (就在藝術空間), 2, Alley 45, Ln 147, Xinyi Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市信義路三段147巷45弄2號), tel: (02) 2707-6942. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 4pm. Until July 15
Jia Art Gallery will open two exhibitions this weekend. Something of a mouthful, Evelyn Ran’s Artistic World — Her Friend’s Little Secrets Unfold (冉綾珮的藝想世界─從窗外窺探朋友的小祕密) is simplicity incarnate. Ran’s simple characters on a background of solid pastel coloring evoke the innocence of childhood. Meanwhile, in Hazel Tan’s Black and White Photo Exhibit (Hazel，一個人的旅行), photographer Hazel Tan (陳姿霖), who the gallery assures us is “a very bright and cheerful Singaporean young woman,” presents black-and-white photographs snapped on a recent trip to Europe with an emphasis on classical architecture.
■ 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), tel: (02) 2591-4302. Open daily from 10am to 6pm
■ Opening reception on Saturday at 3pm. Until July 28
Anyone interested in contemporary photojournalism will want to check out Taiwan Press Photo Contest Exhibition (台灣新聞攝影大賽) currently on view at TIVAC. Running the gamut of entertainment, the arts, the environment, politics and human interest stories, this exhibition presents some of the best photography taken by photojournalists and freelancers working for Taiwanese newspapers and magazines over the past year. The content was chosen by the Taiwan Press Photography Association (台灣新聞攝影研究會), Taiwan’s version of Magnum.
■ Taiwan International Visual Arts Center (TIVAC — 台灣國際視覺藝術中心) 16, Alley 52, Ln 12, Bade Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市八德路三段12巷52弄16號)
■ Until Sunday
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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,
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