Intersecting Vectors (斜面連結) is a test in thinking outside the box. The Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM, 台北市立美術館) invited three young curators to pull pieces from old collections for new conceptual art shows. Chin Ya-chun (秦雅君), Wang Yung-lin (王?琳) and Tsai Ming-jiun (蔡明君) present one galleried recombination each of paintings, videos, woodcut prints, linen art, site installations and other previously displayed pieces. Their exhibition includes six art tours in Mandarin Chinese, starting on Nov. 3. For details, visit www.tfam.museum.
■ TFAM, 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 tomorrow. Until Feb. 16
Photo courtesy of Gallery 100
Chen Wei (陳蔚) paints old clothes, small animals, withered plants and other minutiae of life. At the solo show See You Somewhere Sometime (未竟之地 十月), the objects look bruised and desolate on the canvas, with outlines obscured. For the artist, they are points of meditation for remembering the past and detaching from the present. Chen was inspired by Marcel Proust’s stream-of-consciousness novel Time Regained — the seventh volume in his monumental In Search of Lost Time — in which insignificant objects allow the protagonist to relive bygone incidents.
■ Gallery 100 (百藝畫廊), 1F, 13, Ln 252, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段252巷13號1樓), tel: (02) 2731-0876. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Nov. 17
Photo courtesy of Asia Art Center
Taitung native Pan Hsin-hua (潘信華) uses traditional ink painting techniques to depict contemporary lifestyles in Taiwan, producing vintage yet surreal works that critic Philip Chao-jen Wu (吳超然) has called “never seen before in Chinese contemporary ink painting.” Recent works on view at his solo exhibition Gaze Into Illusions (觀幻) are luxuriant countryside landscapes featuring the adventures of two boys.
■ Asia Art Center II (亞洲藝術中心二館), 93 Lequn 2nd Road, Taipei City (台北市樂群二路93號), tel: (02) 8502-7939. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6:30pm
■ Until Nov. 17
Tangible Splendor (光華可賞) is an introduction to mother-of-pearl ornamentation in traditional lacquer ware. Mother-of-pearl is the lustrous substance harvested from the inside of shells. As early as the Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE) dynasty, artists cut mother-of-pearl into pieces and arranged them on wet lacquer to form patterns and scenes. In the 14th century, maritime trade brought mother-of-pearl techniques to the Ryukyu Islands and Southeast Asia. The National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館) is showing 51 mother-of-pearl antiques that trace the technique’s evolution across history.
■ National Museum of History, 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 Nov. 24
Huang Ko-wei (黃可維) uses thick and unbridled brush strokes to paint death, namely the carcasses of birds. The results, displayed at solo show Irrational Number (無理數), are idealized forms that draw attention to the difference between seeing and truly facing the end of life, as well as the distinction between a reproduction and an original.
■ VT Artsalon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, 17, Ln 56, Xinsheng N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市新生北路三段56巷17號B1), tel: (02) 2597-2525. Open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 1:30pm to 9pm
■ Until Nov. 19
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