Frees Art Space, an eccentric little basement gallery which has exhibited everything from alien-inspired art to a reinterpretation of the Wizard of Oz, is back with another out-of-the-box exhibition. When We Start to get Lost (當我們開始迷途), a solo show of installations by Kaohsiung-born artist Huang Shao-ying (黃韶瑩), explores how easy it is to lose yourself and disappear into the masses in a consumer society. Having grown up on a farm, Huang uses a lot of animal analogies to convey her message, often equating human bodies with animal forms. Groups of Bodies, for instance, resemble sheep being strung from a butcher’s rack. If you look closely, you’ll notice differences between each one, but collectively, they appear to be clones. In Both the Bear Claw and Myself are What I Want, Huang criticizes people who hunt bears as recreation, suggesting that it’s not too different to how humans treat each other. In Catastrophic Growth, Huang fills up a cage with so many chicken feathers that it tips over, spewing feathers onto the ground. This piece was inspired by her memories of watching chickens grow in a cage. She writes in the gallery notes that the process is much like that of “an individual that is stuck in a cage of social expectations.”
■ Frees Art Space (福利社), B1, 82, Xinsheng N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市新生北路三段82號B1); tel: (02) 2585-7600. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 11am to 7pm, Saturdays 1:30pm to 9pm
■ Until Aug. 15
Photo courtesy of Bluerider Art
I must admit I sometimes buy the New Yorker just to look at the cartoons. Since its launch in 1925, the magazine has attained iconic status among artsy, US east coasters. The magazine’s layout hasn’t changed much in the past 90 years, and for many cartoonists, seeing your drawing on the cover is a sign that you’ve made it. German-born cartoonist Christoph Niemann has sketched cartoons for the New Yorker, Time and the New York Times Magazine among others, and now, some of his kooky comics are currently on view at Taipei’s Bluerider Art, in an exhibition titled Christoph the Observer. His style, like many of those who sketch for such publications, is satirical and witty, critical of uppity elites, while still being a part of that upper crust. I quite like his art. Some of my favorites are the one with a dollop of toothpaste hugging the bristles of a toothbrush and a New Yorker cover where a bikini-clad woman drops her cellphone in a pool. They manage to prick at the viewer’s childlike curiosity and evoke some giggles while still managing to be high-brow.
Speaking of the whimsy and the high-brow, UK artist Emily Carew Woodard’s Victorian-esque paintings of well-dressed rabbits, rats, raccoons, toads, anteaters and other animals are also on display at Bluerider Art in the exhibition Emily in Wonderland. Growing up in the Cornish countryside, where her mother used to take her for walks, Woodard was constantly surrounded by animals — so much so that she endows them with human qualities and attributes in her paintings. With much attention to detail, her colorful paintings resemble pages taken out of a late 19th century children’s book. Like the children’s book Alice in Wonderland, Woodard’s mythical animals have viewers wishing that they too lived in this wondrous, mythical world. Apparently, many in the UK have taken a fancy to Woodard’s paintings, as her client list includes The Times of London and the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen.
■ Bluerider Art (藍騎士藝術空間), 9F, 25-1, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段25-1號9樓), tel: (02) 2752-2238. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 9am to 6pm
Photo courtesy of Frees Art Space
■ Both exhibitions run until Aug. 26
Those of us who travel extensively and study abroad have to cope with culture shock, as well as loss of a sense of identity and belonging. It’s a theme addressed by quite a number of artists. I Went Abroad, and then I Went Back (我出國了，然後我回來了) is a solo exhibition by Chen I-hsuen (陳以軒) at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) which explores concepts of identity, belonging and displacement through his own personal experiences working and studying in New York. Utilizing video and photography, Chen blends elements of American and Taiwanese culture. In one of his videos, Chen treats himself as the protagonist in a classic American road trip movie — except the trip is his own spiritual journey as he flies back and forth between Taipei and New York. Although the exhibition is rather introspective, many viewers should be able to relate to the concepts that Chen examines.
TFAM is doing a fine job this month showcasing a diverse range of artwork from the realistic to the abstract. While Chen’s work is blunt and diary-like, Hu Kun-jung’s (胡坤榮) colorful and slanted geometric shapes on canvas are asymmetrical and disproportionate but still aesthetically pleasing. Hu, who became known for his signature abstract painting style in the 1980s, says he is heavily influenced by the French artist Paul Cezanne. Although the works in this exhibition, Perfection in Unbalance (不平衡的完美), seem to more closely resemble abstract art from the 1960s, the idea of a connection with nature that Cezanne espoused is faintly evident in Hu’s artwork, which has names such as The Winter Sun, Insects’ Murmur and Lotus Pond.
Photo courtesy of Taipei Fine Arts Museum
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (台北市立美術館, TFAM), 181, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei (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
■ Both exhibitions open tomorrow and run until Sept. 13
Yang Jeong-dih (楊炯杕), who is mostly known for Le Temps Scelle, which he made out of etched copper prints placed side by side to depict the roaring mountain ranges of his native Yilan County — a task which took six years to complete — currently has a solo exhibition at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition, One Piece Room, might suggest a calm and introspective series of etchings, but Yang’s own outlook is conversely quite pessimistic. Seeing the landscape by the coast in Yilan change over the years, he writes in the gallery notes that he feels “caught in a permanent race with time.” Yet he has managed to capture the beauty of this conundrum in each carefully etched curvature in his sad-but-wise-looking mountains and weeping trees.
“Nothing is forever, or, everything is permanent,” writes Wang Hsiang-ling (王湘靈). Trained as a classical musician for years, there’s a lyrical feel in most of Wang’s videos and photographs. Her latest solo exhibition, Metamorphosis (質變), which is also held at the museum, explores the idea of eternal life through metamorphosis — something may appear to have left the planet, but it might actually still be here, just in another form. The photographs that make up her Metamorphosis photo series resemble consecutive slides. They fluctuate between darkness and sparks of light, plant and human forms, and blossoming flowers and barren trees. Yet instead of having an eerie effect, the darkness in her photographs seem to give the viewers a sense of hope — and this is certainly a welcome break from Yang’s melancholic etchings.
■ 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 X 2432. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm
■ Both exhibitions run until Sept. 13
Feces, vomit and fossilized food from inside stomachs have provided new clues into how dinosaurs rose to dominate Earth, a new study revealed on Wednesday. Scientists have discovered plenty about dinosaurs — particularly about how they vanished off the face of the planet 66 millions years ago. But “we know very little about their rise,” said Martin Qvarnstrom, a researcher at Sweden’s Uppsala University and the study’s lead author. Dinosaurs first appeared at least 230 million years ago, fossils have shown. But they would not become the world’s dominant animal until the start of the Jurassic Period some 30 million years later. What caused this
Last week, the government rejected a petition to amend the law that would allow permanent residents a path to citizenship. This was widely expected, but it came amid a flurry of negative trends about the future of the nation’s labor force. There was much ironic commentary on the juxtaposition of that decision with its idiotic, abusive reasoning with the urgent demand for labor across a wide range of fields. This demand was highlighted by the government’s plans for five NT$10 billion (US$307.6 million) funds to promote development in key fields, including artificial intelligence (AI), “smart” healthcare and green growth announced
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“Bro, I can’t wait for my first dead body,” wrote an 11-year-old boy on Instagram in Sweden, where gangs recruit children too young to be prosecuted as contract killers on chat apps. “Stay motivated, it’ll come,” answered his 19-year-old contact. He went on to offer the child 150,000 kronor (US$13,680) to carry out a murder, as well as clothes and transport to the scene of the crime, according to a police investigation of the exchange last year in the western province of Varmland. In this case, four men aged 18 to 20 are accused of recruiting four minors aged 11 to 17
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