A Line is a Dot that went for a Walk (每條線都是從一個點走出來的) is a solo exhibition by artist-in-residence Sybille Neumeyer at Taipei’s Treasure Hill Artist Village. Neumeyer, a Berlin-based artist who has also completed artist residencies in Croatia and Japan, was inspired by the fragility of Taiwan’s geography and history for this particular exhibition. She uses installation and video to make tangible the abstract ideas of shifting borders and identity. The title of the exhibition is derived from a quote by the late Swiss-German artist Paul Klee.
■ Treasure Hill Artist Village, 52 and 54 (寶藏巖國際藝術村，52，54), 2, Ally 14, Ln 230, Dingzhou Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市汀州路三段230巷14弄2號), tel: (02) 2364-5313. Open Tuesday to Sundays from 11am to 6pm
■ Until Feb. 27
Photo courtesy of Till DiLumiere
Last year, Tainan’s Fotoformosa held a photography exhibition revolving around the theme of water. This year, the theme is wood. Curated by Lynne Tinling Tai, a Malaysian native, Tainan Fotoformosa Wood Photo Exhibition (臺南福爾摩沙攝影展，木) brings together 15 photographers from eight different nationalities — though all of the non-Taiwanese participants are long-time expats who consider Taiwan their “home.” The concept may seem simple — participants must incorporate wood into their photography — though there’s a deeper message. By showcasing expat talent, one of the goals of the exhibition is to challenge the idea of “home” as simply being one’s passport country. As one of the participants, Till DiLumiere, who is also the co-founder of the Tainan 39 Hour Short Film Festival and an assistant professor at Dayeh University (大葉大學), writes in his biography: “Taiwan has always been an immigrant country. To this current day, new immigrants keep coming to Taiwan and join hands with the less recent immigrants to add to Taiwan’s unique culture. It is so easily forgotten that some of us have been living here for most of our life. To most of us this is home.” Who knew such profound meaning could be derived from pictures of wood?
■ Wu Yuan Cultural Center, B1 Exhibition Hall (吳園藝文中心，B1展覽室), 30, Mingchuan Rd Sec 2, Tainan City (台南市民權路二段30號), tel: (06) 221-7942. Open daily from 10am to 5pm.
■ Until March 1
Photo courtesy of A Gallery
In 1928, Chinese photojournalist Long Chin-san (郎靜山), took one of the earliest surviving photographs in Chinese history of a woman in the nude. To say that he was ahead of his time would be an understatement. This is just one noteworthy portrait in the photojournalist’s long and interesting career, during which he photographed anything from beautiful women to picturesque mountains. He began his career in 1911 at Shanghai’s prestigious Shen Bao (申報), or the Shanghai News as it is known in English, and built a name for himself in the Pearl of the Orient. The National Museum of History says that Long valued artistic quality as much as he did journalistic virtue and was dubbed the Father of Asian Photography. The museum is currently holding a memorial exhibition, Masters, Celebrities and Dignitaries (名家．名流．名士 ).
■ National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館), 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.
■ Until March 22
Photo courtesy of A Gallery
With the Year of the Goat fast approaching, it’s time to brush up on your Lunar New Year greetings. An important one is niannianyouyu (年年有餘), which can be translated to: “may every year end in abundance.” Since the character for “abundance” (yu, 餘) is a homophone for the character for “fish” (yu, 魚), fish have always featured as a popular motif throughout thousands of years of Chinese art. As such, the National Palace Museum is currently showcasing Angling for Years of Plenty: A Special Exhibition of Paintings with Fish (年年有餘－畫魚名品特展). From paintings on Neolithic-era pottery to twentieth century scrolls, as you might have guessed, the fish steal the limelight in this exhaustive exhibition spanning different dynasties.
■ 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
Photo courtesy of Till DiLumiere
44 Gallery is a quirky art space on Taipei’s Jianguo South Road devoted to displaying tribal art, contemporary art and a separate section fusing the two. Their latest exhibition Scene, Object (景．物), showcases the videos and sculptures of artist Yeh Yi-li (葉怡利). Yeh cites two seemingly disparate things as her main influences — pop culture and the primal yet aesthetic quality of nature. The artist, who has had her work exhibited around Asia, Europe and the US, blurs the line between scenery and objects by juxtaposing video and sculpture, 2D and 3D. The result, although confusing, makes us consider the intermeshing of different elements, experiences and ideas that constitute the chaos that often characterizes contemporary existence.
■ 44 Gallery (小巴廊), 202, Jianguo S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市建國南路一段202號), tel. (02) 2752-6373. Open Mondays to Saturdays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until March 28
If you’re a science nerd who loves stone — whether it be marble or granite — then this exhibition at Taipei’s A Gallery is for you. Reading Myself (閱讀自我) is a deeply reflective solo exhibition by young sculptor Hou Lien-chin (侯連秦). The artist, a Kaohsiung native, says that although stone may look bulky and unattractive, it has a certain inner beauty which is often overlooked. Thus, chiseling and carving through the layers of stone, is in a sense, therapeutic. The result is the transformation of stone-cold material into artwork that generates much heart and warmth. Hou even gives his artwork nurturing names like Home or A Book.
■ A Gallery (當代一畫廊), 22, Alley 36, Lane 147, Xinyi Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市信義路三段147巷36弄22號), tel: (02) 2702-3327. Open Mondays to Saturdays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until March 28
May 11 to May 18 The original Taichung Railway Station was long thought to have been completely razed. Opening on May 15, 1905, the one-story wooden structure soon outgrew its purpose and was replaced in 1917 by a grandiose, Western-style station. During construction on the third-generation station in 2017, workers discovered the service pit for the original station’s locomotive depot. A year later, a small wooden building on site was determined by historians to be the first stationmaster’s office, built around 1908. With these findings, the Taichung Railway Station Cultural Park now boasts that it has
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
The latest Formosa poll released at the end of last month shows confidence in President William Lai (賴清德) plunged 8.1 percent, while satisfaction with the Lai administration fared worse with a drop of 8.5 percent. Those lacking confidence in Lai jumped by 6 percent and dissatisfaction in his administration spiked up 6.7 percent. Confidence in Lai is still strong at 48.6 percent, compared to 43 percent lacking confidence — but this is his worst result overall since he took office. For the first time, dissatisfaction with his administration surpassed satisfaction, 47.3 to 47.1 percent. Though statistically a tie, for most
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
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