Award-winning photojournalist Richard Kao (高政全) specializes in humanistic photography and portraits of street culture, particularly of young protesters, graffiti artists, street dancers and the frequenters of Taipei nightlife. His new solo exhibition The new generation, 新束代) brings together 52 photographs of young adults born around 1990. Featuring iconic Taipei backdrops and labeled after letters of the English alphabet, each image records faces of an integral though sometimes undecipherable component of the urban infrastructure. For the photographer, who is approaching 40 years old, the series was a way to seek dialogue with today’s young adults and a form of emotional relief, according to the gallery notes. Kao, formerly of China Times (中國時報) and now of Ming Weekly (明周), is winner of the 2010 Taihai Press Photo Contest for arts and culture and the 22nd Vivian Wu (吳舜文) award for photojournalism.
■ Douchanglee Art Space (台北中山概念店藝文空間), 1, Ln 16, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市中山北路二段16巷1號), tel: (02) 2581-9866. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 8pm, closed on Mondays
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 2pm. Until Dec. 14
Photo courtesy: Soka Art Center
Earth (此地) is a solo exhibition by Singaporean artist Ho Tzu-nyen (何子彥), who is known for smart, crafted films that expose the apparatus of cinema, sometimes by using highly artificial landscapes or by making the crew and lighting a key element of the action. In Taipei, Ho is showing three of his signature art videos: Earth, Newton and Gould, which riff on the ideas of Caravaggio, Isaac Newton and Glenn Gould, respectively. The exhibition includes an artist’s talk tomorrow at 1pm.
■ Project Fulfill Art Space (就在藝術空間), 2, Alley 45, Ln 147, Xinyi Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市信義路三段147巷45弄2號), tel: (02) 2707-6942. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm
■ Until Nov. 26
Photo courtesy: Douchanglee Art Space
The Youth (這青春) is a solo exhibition of embroidery by Tsai Shu-hui (蔡淑惠), her first in 15 years. Tsai is a US-trained Taiwanese artist who created large socio-politically-inflected exhibitions in the 1990s and gradually withdrew from the public eye during her struggles with schizophrenia. The new show brings together 24 pieces that date between 1999 and the present: traditional thread embroidery that incorporates materials such as beads, prints and in one piece, the artist’s hair. In contrast to previous exhibitions, this one is small and distinctly personal, featuring images of everyday objects and fragments of a woman’s body.
■ Art window at the 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
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Dec. 14
Yuan Goang-ming (袁廣鳴) presents videos, photography and a kinetic installation on the concept of the dwelling at solo show An Uncanny Tomorrow (不舒適的明日). Dwelling, a video work set in the living room of a middle-class household, draws from the work of German philosopher Martin Heidegger to investigate what makes a peaceful home. In other works, Yuan uses themes from cross-strait affairs and the controversy over Taiwan’s nuclear power plants, ultimately to encourage viewers to re-examine the realities within their dwelling. Born in Taipei in 1965, Yuan is a pioneer of video art and represented Taiwan at the 50th Venice Biennale.
■ TKG+ 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 6:30pm. Until Nov. 30
Bloom (綻放) is the latest solo show by famed ballpoint-pen artist Tzeng Yong-ning (曾雍甯) of Changhua County. Tzeng is showing his freshly-completed Bloom and Autumn series which consist of 18 landscapes of imaginary flora in vivid colors. Drawn in laboriously line by line with ballpoint pen, the blocks of color indicate piles of mountains and trails that echo the forms of traditional Chinese landscape paintings.
■ Soka Art Center (索卡藝術中心), 2F, 57, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段57號2樓), tel: (02) 2570-0390. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 9pm
■ Opening reception tomorrow at 4pm. Until Dec. 14
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
Even by the standards of Ukraine’s International Legion, which comprises volunteers from over 55 countries, Han has an unusual backstory. Born in Taichung, he grew up in Costa Rica — then one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — where a relative worked for the embassy. After attending an American international high school in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, Han — who prefers to use only his given name for OPSEC (operations security) reasons — moved to the US in his teens. He attended Penn State University before returning to Taiwan to work in the semiconductor industry in Kaohsiung, where he
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
Perched on Thailand’s border with Myanmar, Arunothai is a dusty crossroads town, a nowheresville that could be the setting of some Southeast Asian spaghetti Western. Its main street is the final, dead-end section of the two-lane highway from Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city 120kms south, and the heart of the kingdom’s mountainous north. At the town boundary, a Chinese-style arch capped with dragons also bears Thai script declaring fealty to Bangkok’s royal family: “Long live the King!” Further on, Chinese lanterns line the main street, and on the hillsides, courtyard homes sit among warrens of narrow, winding alleyways and
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