In Exploring the Media Boundaries (媒界探勘), seven artists use digital technology to offer immersive installations and experiences of augmented reality. Bram Snijders and Carolien Teunisse from the Netherlands present Re:, a 360-degree installation featuring a projector that can project light on itself. In Exploded Views 2.0, Marnix de Nijs analyzes the GPS tags of photos on Flickr and other sharing sites, converting the most photographed locations into 3D, and building the world as it’s represented on the Web. This exhibition is staged in collaboration with the V2_Institute for the Unstable Media, a center for art and technology based in Rotterdam.
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立臺灣美術館), 2, Wuquan W Rd Sec 1, Greater Taichung (台中市西區五權西路一段2號) tel: (04) 2372-3552, open Tuesdays to Fridays from 9am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm
■ Until August 17
Photo Courtesy of TFAM
Discard is a solo exhibition by acclaimed Shanghai-based porcelain sculptor Liu Jianhua (劉建華). Liu brings five small-scale pieces and the titular work Discard (遺棄), a simulation excavation site. Discard features pits filled with colorful heaps of counterfeit antiques and pale replicas of familiar utensils — perverse porcelains that tell a story of materialism gone wrong, with all of its sweet comforts. Born in Jian (吉安) in 1962, Liu participated in the Venice Biennale at the China Pavilion in 2003, showing porcelain replicas of daily objects that prioritize appearance and symbolism over function.
■ TKG+ Projects Taipei, B1, Ln 548, 15, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路548巷15號B1), tel: (02) 2659-0798, open Tuesdays to Fridays from 10am to 7pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 4:30pm. Until July 20
Photo Courtesy of VT Artsalon
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum (臺北市立美術館) presents a retrospective on the life and work of the late abstract expressionist Chen Cheng-hsiung (陳正雄). Around 80 paintings, catalogues, literature and documentary films illustrate Chen’s career from his early semi-representational works to his exuberant forays into pure abstraction at Chen Chen-hsiung: A Retrospective (陳正雄回顧展). Born 1935 in Taipei, Chen became one of the leading abstract painters of Asia, working out of Taiwan throughout his career and exhibiting overseas. In 2001, he was recipient of the Florence Biennale’s “Lorenzo il Magnifico” Lifetime Achievement Award.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 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
■ Until August 17
Eating Wind (吃風) brings together 13 Malaysia-based artists who respond to Malaysia’s recent initiatives to boost art tourism, in which visitors fly in to attend local art festivals, concerts, wine events and museum tours. Curated by Hoo Fan Chon of Malaysia and ##Chen Yi-chiu (陳依秋) of Taiwan, the pieces depict personal notions about traveling on holiday (which in Malaysia is colloquially called “eating wind”) and address the repercussions of “eating wind” on both the traveler and the host country. This show was first staged in Penang and is winner of VT Art Salon’s (非常廟藝文空間) annual open call to curators.
■ VT Artsalon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, 17, Ln 56, Xinsheng 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 Fridays from 11:30am to 7pm, Saturdays from 1:30pm to 9pm, closed Sundays and Mondays
■ Curator’s talk tomorrow at 5pm, opening reception at 7pm. Until July 19
At Natural to Next Natural (自然而然), 17 teams of Dutch and Taiwanese artists present design solutions for four issues: environmental sustainability, war-related suffering, disease and illness and the technological divide. A fifth gallery, themed Biotech, presents innovations in fabrics that harness new biological technology.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA, Taipei), 39 Changan W Rd, Taipei City (台北市長安西路39號), tel: (02) 2552-3720. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Free admission
■ Until July 20
It is barely 10am and the queue outside Onigiri Bongo already stretches around the block. Some of the 30 or so early-bird diners sit on stools, sipping green tea and poring over laminated menus. Further back it is standing-room only. “It’s always like this,” says Yumiko Ukon, who has run this modest rice ball shop and restaurant in the Otsuka neighbourhood of Tokyo for almost half a century. “But we never run out of rice,” she adds, seated in her office near a wall clock in the shape of a rice ball with a bite taken out. Bongo, opened in 1960 by
Common sense is not that common: a recent study from the University of Pennsylvania concludes the concept is “somewhat illusory.” Researchers collected statements from various sources that had been described as “common sense” and put them to test subjects. The mixed bag of results suggested there was “little evidence that more than a small fraction of beliefs is common to more than a small fraction of people.” It’s no surprise that there are few universally shared notions of what stands to reason. People took a horse worming drug to cure COVID! They think low-traffic neighborhoods are a communist plot and call
Taiwan, once relegated to the backwaters of international news media and viewed as a subset topic of “greater China,” is now a hot topic. Words associated with Taiwan include “invasion,” “contingency” and, on the more cheerful side, “semiconductors” and “tourism.” It is worth noting that while Taiwanese companies play important roles in the semiconductor industry, there is no such thing as a “Taiwan semiconductor” or a “Taiwan chip.” If crucial suppliers are included, the supply chain is in the thousands and spans the globe. Both of the variants of the so-called “silicon shield” are pure fantasy. There are four primary drivers
The sprawling port city of Kaohsiung seldom wins plaudits for its beauty or architectural history. That said, like any other metropolis of its size, it does have a number of strange or striking buildings. This article describes a few such curiosities, all but one of which I stumbled across by accident. BOMBPROOF HANGARS Just north of Kaohsiung International Airport, hidden among houses and small apartment buildings that look as though they were built between 15 and 30 years ago, are two mysterious bunker-like structures that date from the airport’s establishment as a Japanese base during World War II. Each is just about
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