The Horror of Happiness (闔家觀賞) is a solo exhibition by the young and quirky Taipei-born, Brooklyn-based painter Huang Hai-hsin (黃海欣). Having studied advertising in college, Huang is influenced by the idea of propaganda in her artwork. “[The] government tells us what to trust, but there is something strange and humorous and scary behind it all,” Huang tells NonNativeNewYork.com. Her wildly bizarre paintings also represent the extreme spectrum of human emotions. Lobster Joint, for instance, is meant to depict a happy birthday party scene, but the children are exhausted from eating too much food and one is even throwing up. In other words, the painting is a humorous rendition of gluttony. Viewers will not know whether to laugh or to be appalled when looking at Huang’s artwork — and that’s precisely what she wants us to experience.
■ VT Art Salon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, 47 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街47號B1), tel: (02) 2516-1060. Open Tuesdays through Thursdays from 1:30pm to 9pm, and Fridays and Saturdays from 1:30pm to 10pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Feb. 14
Photo courtesy of Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei
The Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei’s picturesque Beitou District is currently showcasing The Spine of Spectrum (光譜的稜線), a joint exhibition by 13 artists in their twenties from all over Taiwan. The exhibition takes as its premise that light and color are two elements that tend to be neglected in a time when more and more contemporary artists are producing videos or creating installation art. Referring to the color spectrum, which is created when white light is dispersed through a glass prism, the exhibition returns art to the basics. From Zeng Lin-yuan’s (曾麟媛) paintings of confetti showers to Chen Ching-yuan’s (陳敬元) knotted rainbows, the haunting beauty of primary and secondary colors are simply fleshed out in paint and illuminated by lights rather than through convoluted video projections or time-lapse photography.
■ 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 2432. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm
■ Until Feb. 15
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Photo courtesy of VT Art Salon
Part of the crop of young, emerging digital artists, Hung Shih-ting (洪詩婷) has come a long way from her Penghu island roots to being an award-winning film director and video artist in Los Angeles. The first film she directed, in 2008, was screened at New York’s Guggenheim Museum. Her latest experimental film The Portrait of Brain (腦的肖像) about the mind and memories will be screen at the Digital Art Center in Taipei starting tomorrow. In it, Hung essentially deconstructs the idea that a picture says a thousand words, showing instead how our brain constantly plays tricks on us, allowing us to recall an incident differently than what the picture may suggest. Like most of Hung’s films, this one is eerie and probing at the same time.
■ 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, except Nov. 28 and Nov. 29. Free admission
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Feb. 17
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Photo courtesy of Metaphysical Art Gallery
After a successful run in Today Art Museum in Beijing last April, the revamped A Tale of Two Cities (雙城記) debuts tomorrow at Taipei’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA, Taipei). It is a two-part exhibition showcasing the works of two artists who played pivotal roles in transforming Taiwan’s contemporary art scene in the late 1980s after the end of Martial Law, and focuses in particular on the psychological aspects of living in a modern, industrialized city like Taipei. In part one, Glimpses of Cities (浮城過影), Lu Hsien-ming (陸先銘) explores through his paintings, Taipei’s evolving relationship with individuals and communities. Utilizing solemn greyish-blue hues, Lu’s artwork meticulously documents the rapid change in Taipei’s cityscape from the early 1990s to the present day — bamboo structures morph into freeways and elderly couples look despondent as they rest beneath these underpasses. Kuo Wei-kuo’s (郭維國) paintings, which make up part two, Gardens of Spirits (萬園有靈), are more abstract and sinfully whimsical. Kuo employs symbols of various vices from western mythology, although the central character in his paintings is always the artist.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (台北當代藝術館, MOCA), 39 Chang-an 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. Regular admission: NT$50
■ Opens tomorrow. Until March 15
Kunming-born Chinese artist Ye Yong-qing (葉永青), who is well-known for his cheerful acrylic paintings of birds, has a solo exhibition at Taipei’s Metaphysical Art Gallery entitled Grand Sight to the Tropic of Cancer (大觀北迴歸線). Describing his painting method as “slow scribble,” Ye’s artwork evoke feelings of simplicity and freedom. Also evident in the collection is Ye’s almost nerdy fascination with migratory patterns, not just of birds, but of people as well. He projects humanistic aspirations onto the birds in such a way that they become a representative of what our own lives would be if only we were free of worldly constraints.
■ Metaphysical Art Gallery (形而上畫廊), 7F, 219, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段219號7樓), tel: (02) 2771-3236. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6:30pm, closed on Mondays
■ Opens tomorrow. Until March 22
At last, the National Palace Museum has an exhibition focused solely on alcohol. Tusu Wine: The Emperor’s First Drink of the Chinese New Year (屠蘇酒－皇帝新春的第一杯酒) is a collection of rare books, poems, calligraphic paintings and wine vessels from the Qing imperial court dating back from the Qianlong Emperor’s reign (1735-1796). Each of the antiquities document the wine ceremony that the Qianlong Emperor held every year on the first day of Chinese New Year. The entire family would gather to drink tusu wine starting from the youngest family member to the oldest, symbolizing longevity. Ancient scrolls depict scenes where children play with the branches of cherry blossom trees in the imperial gardens while the emperor is served his tusu wine by dainty-looking courtesans.
■ National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院), 221 Zhishan Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市至善路二段221號), tel: (02) 2881-2021. Open daily from 9am to 5pm.
■ Until March 25
When nature calls, Masana Izawa has followed the same routine for more than 50 years: heading out to the woods in Japan, dropping his pants and doing as bears do. “We survive by eating other living things. But you can give faeces back to nature so that organisms in the soil can decompose them,” the 74-year-old said. “This means you are giving life back. What could be a more sublime act?” “Fundo-shi” (“poop-soil master”) Izawa is something of a celebrity in Japan, publishing books, delivering lectures and appearing in a documentary. People flock to his “Poopland” and centuries-old wooden “Fundo-an” (“poop-soil house”) in
Jan 13 to Jan 19 Yang Jen-huang (楊仁煌) recalls being slapped by his father when he asked about their Sakizaya heritage, telling him to never mention it otherwise they’ll be killed. “Only then did I start learning about the Karewan Incident,” he tells Mayaw Kilang in “The social culture and ethnic identification of the Sakizaya” (撒奇萊雅族的社會文化與民族認定). “Many of our elders are reluctant to call themselves Sakizaya, and are accustomed to living in Amis (Pangcah) society. Therefore, it’s up to the younger generation to push for official recognition, because there’s still a taboo with the older people.” Although the Sakizaya became Taiwan’s 13th
For anyone on board the train looking out the window, it must have been a strange sight. The same foreigner stood outside waving at them four different times within ten minutes, three times on the left and once on the right, his face getting redder and sweatier each time. At this unique location, it’s actually possible to beat the train up the mountain on foot, though only with extreme effort. For the average hiker, the Dulishan Trail is still a great place to get some exercise and see the train — at least once — as it makes its way
Earlier this month, a Hong Kong ship, Shunxin-39, was identified as the ship that had cut telecom cables on the seabed north of Keelung. The ship, owned out of Hong Kong and variously described as registered in Cameroon (as Shunxin-39) and Tanzania (as Xinshun-39), was originally People’s Republic of China (PRC)-flagged, but changed registries in 2024, according to Maritime Executive magazine. The Financial Times published tracking data for the ship showing it crossing a number of undersea cables off northern Taiwan over the course of several days. The intent was clear. Shunxin-39, which according to the Taiwan Coast Guard was crewed
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