Liang Shih-yu (梁世佑), aka Rainreader Liang , ponders video games and their role in a recent stabbing spree on Taipei’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT). His digital art show Who Pulled the Trigger: The Connotation and Context of Violent Video Games (誰來扣板機: 暴力電玩遊戲的內涵與理路) includes a short film, roundtable talks and a curated gaming experience that gives an overview of the industry’s history and controversies. Criticism against video-gaming arose after reports that MRT stabbing suspect Cheng Chieh (鄭捷) spent his free time on violent fiction and video games. “The exhibition conveys that the very player, rather than the game setting, makes the final decision of ‘shoot or not shoot,’” Liang says.
■ Digital Art Center (台北數位藝術中心), 180 Fuhua Rd, Taipei City (台北市福華路180號), tel: (02) 7736-0708. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Free admission
■ Until Sept. 15
Photo courtesy of KMFA
The Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (高雄市立美術館) invited 20 Taiwanese poets to write about iconic paintings and other visual art. At Marvelous Encounters in the Collection: On Wings of Music and Poetry (典藏奇遇記：藝享天開詩與樂), Lin Feng-chu’s (林鳳珠) lyrical Hoklo poem is shown with Chen Ruey-fu’s (陳瑞福) Fish Market (魚市). Sisters, by Chen Chiu-pai (陳秋白), provides the textual backdrop to Lin Bo-liang’s (林柏樑) portrait series on a red-light district. Select art is also displayed with original music compositions, film and commissioned recorded readings.
■ Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (KMFA), 80 Meishuguan Rd, Greater Kaohsiung (高雄市美術館路80號), tel: (07) 555-0331. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9am to 5pm. Admission: Free
■ Until Sept. 9
Photo courtesy of Eslite Gallery
Ho Ming-Kuei (何明桂) creates scenes based on fantasies and memory at As Dream, As Illusion (如夢如幻). Ho’s video works and other media are high-definition landscapes inspired by descriptions of psychical space — a painful personal memory, a recalled dream and a friend’s vivid account of a UFO sighting.
■ Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館), 1 Xueyuan Rd, Taipei City (台北市學園路1號), tel: (02) 2896-1000 Ext. 2415. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm
■ Until Sept. 14
The Sociology of Oneself (自我的社會學) features six artists from China who address themes from their lives. Contemporary Chinese artists don’t struggle against totalitarianism, but engage instead with a complex web of power and capitalism that they themselves are part of, writes curator Zhu Zhu (朱朱), winner of the 2011 CCAA (Chinese Contemporary Art Award, 中國當代藝術獎) for Critics. In this showcase of film, paintings and other media, artists deal with counterfeit goods, consumerism and industrial progress, which in Cheng Ran (程然) video installation The Fire and the Tree is linked to a form of stagnation.
■ Eslite Gallery (誠品畫廊), 5F, 11 Songgao Rd, Taipei City (台北市松高路11號5樓), tel: (02) 8789-3388 X1588. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until Sept. 21
Chinese fine artist Ying Tianqi (應天齊) displays 15 recent works at The Wall of Enigmas (迷牆). Ying paints and presses materials onto large boards so that they resemble the cracked walls of ancient ruins. The faux-preserved walls are a lament over the erosion of the physical sculptures along with their space and time.
■ 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 Sunday
Michael slides a sequin glove over the pop star’s tarnished legacy, shrouding Michael Jackson’s complications with a conventional biopic that, if you cover your ears, sounds great. Antoine Fuqua’s movie is sanctioned by Jackson’s estate and its producers include the estate’s executors. So it is, by its nature, a narrow, authorized perspective on Jackson. The film ends before the flood of allegations of sexual abuse of children, or Jackson’s own acknowledgment of sleeping alongside kids. Jackson and his estate have long maintained his innocence. In his only criminal trial, in 2005, Jackson was acquitted. Michael doesn’t even subtly nod to these facts.
Writing of the finds at the ancient iron-working site of Shihsanhang (十 三行) in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里), archaeologist Tsang Cheng-hwa (臧振華) of the Academia Sinica’s Institute of History and Philology observes: “One bronze bowl gilded with gold, together with copper coins and fragments of Tang and Song ceramics, were also found. These provide evidence for early contact between Taiwan aborigines and Chinese.” The Shihsanhang Web site from the Ministry of Culture says of the finds: “They were evidence that the residents of the area had a close trading relation with Chinese civilians, as the coins can be
The March/April volume of Foreign Affairs, long a purveyor of pro-China pablum, offered up another irksome Beijing-speak on the issues and solutions for the problems vexing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the US: “America and China at the Edge of Ruin: A Last Chance to Step Back From the Brink” rang the provocative title, by David M. Lampton and Wang Jisi (王緝思). If one ever wants to describe what went wrong with US-PRC relations, the career of Wang Jisi is a good place to start. Wang has extensive experience in the US and the West. He was a visiting
The January 2028 presidential election is already stirring to life. In seven or eight months, the primary season will kick into high gear following this November’s local elections. By this point next year, we will likely know the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate and whether the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) will be fielding a candidate. Also around this time, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will either have already completed their primary, or it will be heading into the final stretch. By next summer, the presidential race will be in high gear. The big question is who will be the KMT’s
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