Infinity Dots is a retrospective of art by renowned Japanese painter Yayoi Kusama, whose work is inspired by the auditory and visual hallucinations she began experiencing as a young child. In Kusuma’s colorful creations, the Earth is just one of a million dots which are the “cells and molecules” of the universe. This show brings together paintings, sculptures and an installation mural composed of a celluloid doll army.
■ 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
■ Until Oct. 28
Photo courtesy of Mind Set Art Center
The 7th Annual Tagboat Award invited four jurors — Tomio Koyama from Tomio Koyama gallery, Shigeo Goto, organizer of Tokyo Front Line, Daisuke Miyatsu, professor at Kyoto University and Aki gallery owner Rick Wang — to select five promising young Japanese artists from a pool of over 380 participants. Winning works will be exhibited at Aki gallery next week. These include sculptures by Tomohiro Higashikag, who uses representations of animal heads to explore themes of life and death. Satoshi Aoki, creates very fine but irregular lines on Japanese paper with colored ink. Ayako Kato’s paintings explore the connection between people and the environment. Dogs represent different human personalities in the works of Kaori Ogishima. Hiroshi Mori, who already enjoys a following in Taiwan, examines instability in society with his work. Art by Toyo Horikawa and Tatsuya Kikuchi will also be on display.
■ Aki Gallery (也趣藝廊), 141 Minzu W Rd, Taipei City (台北市民族西路141號), tel: (02) 2599-1171. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6:30pm
■ Sept. 19 to 30, reception on Sept. 22
Photo courtesy of Metaphysical Art Gallery
The Pervasive Space (前前後後 來來回回 流動的空間) features artist Emily Shih-chih Yang’s (楊世芝) collages. Though energetic, curvaceous lines and shapes in Yang’s artwork appear to be fluid brushstrokes, they are in fact made of many tiny bits of paper carefully pieced together. Every single scrap also has a message brushed onto it in tiny calligraphic strokes. Yang says each of her collages, made without any planning or sketches, capture all the emotions she feels as she allows each image to emerge organically.
■ IT Park Gallery (伊通公園), 41 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街41號), tel: (02) 2507-7243. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 1pm to 10pm
■ Until Oct. 13
Photo courtesy of IT Park Gallery
Advance tickets for the second annual Taiwan Photo (台灣攝影藝術博覽會) will be available starting tomorrow on the event’s Web site (www.taiwanphotofair.com). The exhibition, which will run from Oct. 5 to Oct. 10 at Xinyi District’s Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, brings together a mix of emerging and established photographers, galleries and studios in an intimate environment. This year’s special guests include Japan’s Photographer Hal and England’s Thomas Hodges. Advance tickets are available through Sept. 30 and are NT$120 each or NT$270 for an early bird package including an exhibition catalog. For more information in English and Chinese, visit: http://www.taiwanphotofair.com
Juin Shieh’s (謝鴻均) solo show From Single to Dual, From Dual to Single (一二‧二一) is a two-part retrospective of the artist’s work, following the development of her painting style over the last 15 years. Each of Shieh’s abstract canvases contain symbols that represent female characters in different novels, including the protagonist of Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s The Yellow Wallpaper.
■ Mind Set Art Center, 16-1, Xinsheng S Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市新生南路三段16-1號), tel: (02) 2365-6008. Tuesdays to Sunday 2pm to 6pm
■ Part 1 of the exhibition runs until Oct. 14. Part two starts on Oct. 19 and runs until Nov. 11
My friends and I have been enjoying the last two weeks of revelation after revelation of the financial and legal shenanigans of Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head and recent presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). Every day brings fresh news — allegations that a building had purchased with party subsidies but listed in Ko’s name, allegations of downloading party subsidy funds into his personal accounts. Ko’s call last December for the regulations for the government’s special budgets to be amended to enforce fiscal discipline, and his September unveiling of his party’s anti-corruption plan, have now taken on a certain delightful irony.
The number of scandals and setbacks hitting the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in such quick and daily succession in the last few weeks is unprecedented, at least in the countries whose politics I am familiar with. The local media is covering this train wreck on an almost hourly basis, which in the latest news saw party chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) detained by prosecutors on Friday and released without bail yesterday. The number of links collected to produce these detailed columns may reach 400 by the time this hits the streets. To get up to speed, two columns have been written: “Donovan’s
President William Lai’s (賴清德) vision for Taiwan to become an “AI island” has three conditions: constructing advanced data centers, ensuring a stable and green energy supply, and cultivating AI talent. However, the energy issue supply is the greatest challenge. To clarify, let’s reframe the problem in terms of the Olympics. Given Taiwan’s OEM (original equipment manufacturer) roles in the technology sector, Taiwan is not an athlete in the AI Olympics, or even a trainer, but rather a training ground for global AI athletes (AI companies). In other words, Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem provides world-class training facilities and equipment that have already attracted
Despite her well-paying tech job, Li Daijing didn’t hesitate when her cousin asked for help running a restaurant in Mexico City. She packed up and left China for the Mexican capital last year, with dreams of a new adventure. The 30-year-old woman from Chengdu, the Sichuan provincial capital, hopes one day to start an online business importing furniture from her home country. “I want more,” Li said. “I want to be a strong woman. I want independence.” Li is among a new wave of Chinese migrants who are leaving their country in search of opportunities, more freedom or better financial prospects at a
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