The 32nd Young Designers’ Exhibition (YODEX, 新一代設計展) opens today with original fashion, art and advertising, industrial, digital media and interior designs by local students. YODEX, which serves as a recruitment platform, is built around a juried competition. Among the 59 contenders is National Taipei University of Technology’s Department of Industrial Design, whose entries include an office chair that pulls out so you can nap face-down, and Flapping Ears (愛犬電動速克達), a contoured scooter that gives your pet a comfortable ride and a great view. Tatung University, another exhibitor with a strong record, has toys like the Walkabout, a mobile-phone powered device that’s pushed out from the waterfront to pick up trash a swimmer can’t reach.
■ Taipei World Trade Center Hall 1 and Hall 3, 5, Xinyi Rd Sec 5 (北市信義路五段5號) and 6 Songshou Rd (松壽路六號); tel: (02) 2745-8199 ext. 581. General admission: NT$200
■ Until Monday
Photo courtesy of KdMoFA
Chinese painter Su Xioabai (蘇笑柏) manages conflict with a light touch at Grand Immensity — the Art of Xiaobai Su (大境－蘇笑柏藝術展), his painting and installation exhibition at Taichung’s National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung (國立台灣美術館). Su, who trained at Germany’s prestigious Dusseldorf Academy of Fine Arts, has developed a visual language that blends Occidental and Chinese aesthetics. He treats the canvas with big shimmery blocks of color like the western expressionists do, but applies classic Eastern iconography and Chinese mediums like lacquer to give his paintings a peculiar luster. Su eschews the symbols of nation, preferring to let his works surpass difference.
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung (國立台灣美術館), 2, Wuquan W Rd Sec 1, Greater Taichung (台中市五權西路一段2號), tel: (04) 2372-3552. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm
■ Until July 21
Photo courtesy of National Taipei University of Technology
The National Museum of History is showing 203 paintings and calligraphy works of artist Pu Xinyu (溥心畬), 50 years after his death. Pu, cousin to China’s last emperor Pu Yi (溥儀), won acclaim during the Qing Dynasty for perfecting the trifecta of Chinese arts: poetry, calligraphy and painting. After fleeing to Taiwan in the same year as Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), Pu taught at National Taiwan Normal University and continued his work at a studio in Taipei until his death in 1963. The Scholar-Recluse: Painting and Calligraphy by Pu Xinyu (逸筆儒風：溥心畬書畫展) includes calligraphy — Pu excelled at running and clerical script — and classical paintings of nearly every genre: landscapes, birds-and-flowers and subject paintings featuring the mythological Zhong Kuo (鍾馗), an exorcist who wards off demons during the Dragon Boat Festival.
■ National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館), 49 Nanhai Rd, Taipei City (台北市南海路49號), tel: (02) 2361-0270. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. General admission: NT$30
■ Until June 23
Photo courtesy of the National Museum of History
An Ode to Printmaking: A Retrospective (周瑛印紀) surveys the late printmaker Chou Ying (周瑛), who cofounded the Taiwan Society of Printmaking in 1970. Chou began his career with classic woodcut prints that rendered country folk in refined and realistic lines. After 1950, he branched out into other mediums such as cane-fiber boards, paper and finally stone. Chou’s Ode to Stone, a series on display at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (KdMoFA, 關渡美術館), was created by an innovative rubbing — not carving — technique that makes the cold stones exude warmth and light on prints.
Kuandu, a nine-gallery museum, is also showing works by contemporary artist Hsieh Li-fa (謝里法). Hsieh is a main driver of Taiwan’s postwar art scene, and has worked primarily in art criticism and oil painting. In his early years, he was also a prolific printmaker. Old Plates New Prints — A Solo Exhibition by Hsieh Lifa (舊版新印－謝里法版畫作品展) presents a decade of his early printing work, dating from school days in Paris to his New York City apprenticeship in 1974. The prints are linocuts and zincographs that remark on and sometimes deconstruct local art trends, as well as document Hsieh’s own evolution as an artist.
■ Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (KdMoFA, 關渡美術館), 1 Xueyuan Rd, Taipei City (台北市學園路1號), tel: (02) 2896-1000 ext 2432. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm
■ Until July 14
Sixty-one galleries from Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and China bring contemporary pieces to the fifth annual Young Art Taipei 2013, a fair that shows artists under the age of 45.
■ Sheraton Taipei Hotel, F9, 12, Zhongxiao E Rd Sec 1, Zhongzheng Dist, Taipei City (台北市忠孝東路一段12號守九樓). Open today from 2pm to 10pm, tomorrow and Sunday from 12pm to 8pm. Admission: NT$250
■ Opening reception today at 8pm. Until Sunday
Jason Han says that the e-arrival card spat between South Korea and Taiwan shows that Seoul is signaling adherence to its “one-China” policy, while Taiwan’s response reflects a reciprocal approach. “Attempts to alter the diplomatic status quo often lead to tit-for-tat responses,” the analyst on international affairs tells the Taipei Times, adding that Taiwan may become more cautious in its dealings with South Korea going forward. Taipei has called on Seoul to correct its electronic entry system, which currently lists Taiwan as “China (Taiwan),” warning that reciprocal measures may follow if the wording is not changed before March 31. As of yesterday,
The Portuguese never established a presence on Taiwan, but they must have traded with the indigenous people because later traders reported that the locals referred to parts of deer using Portuguese words. What goods might the Portuguese have offered their indigenous trade partners? Among them must have been slaves, for the Portuguese dealt slaves across Asia. Though we often speak of “Portuguese” ships, imagining them as picturesque vessels manned by pointy-bearded Iberians, in Asia Portuguese shipping between local destinations was crewed by Asian seamen, with a handful of white or Eurasian officers. “Even the great carracks of 1,000-2,000 tons which plied
It’s only half the size of its more famous counterpart in Taipei, but the Botanical Garden of the National Museum of Nature Science (NMNS, 國立自然科學博物館植物園) is surely one of urban Taiwan’s most inviting green spaces. Covering 4.5 hectares immediately northeast of the government-run museum in Taichung’s North District (北區), the garden features more than 700 plant species, many of which are labeled in Chinese but not in English. Since its establishment in 1999, the site’s managers have done their best to replicate a number of native ecosystems, dividing the site into eight areas. The name of the Coral Atoll Zone might
Nuclear power is getting a second look in Southeast Asia as countries prepare to meet surging energy demand as they vie for artificial intelligence-focused data centers. Several Southeast Asian nations are reviving mothballed nuclear plans and setting ambitious targets and nearly half of the region could, if they pursue those goals, have nuclear energy in the 2030s. Even countries without current plans have signaled their interest. Southeast Asia has never produced a single watt of nuclear energy, despite long-held atomic ambitions. But that may soon change as pressure mounts to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change, while meeting growing power needs. The
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