After graduating with a double degree in physics and engineering, Taiwan-born, Australian-raised Annie Wang Hsiao-wen (王筱雯) worked at a mining company in Australia, but felt that it just wasn’t her calling. Soon after, Wang started painting abstract scenes, utilizing warm colors and earthy hues in order to produce a billowing effect. Wang, who says she draws inspiration from Buddhism and meditation, captures this in her paintings, most of which have a mysterious, transcendental quality. Her latest exhibition, Seek (覓), which is currently on display at Yesart Air Gallery in Taipei, showcases 17 of her newest works.
■ Yesart Air Gallery (意識畫廊), 2F, 48, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 7, Taipei City (台北市中山北路七段48號2樓), tel: (02) 2876-3858. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 2pm to 8pm
■ Until Sept. 15
Photo courtesy of Frees Art Space
German artistic duo Marc Weis and Martin De Mattia, who refer to themselves simply as M+M, have been producing short films together for the last 20 years. Their latest exhibition, Bittersweet Harmony, is set to open at Taipei’s VT Art Salon tomorrow, and will include screenings of their most noted work, 7 days. Filmed over the course of seven years, 7 days chronicles the daily life of a solitary man, emphasizing how he interacts with people. His actions are juxtaposed on two separate screens. There’s one scene where he’s lying in bed with his naked girlfriend and another with his young daughter in her underwear. The dialogue is exactly the same — they’re both asking the actor if he loves them or not — but his tone of voice is discernibly different in each situation (although that doesn’t make it any less disturbing). The exhibition space itself is also important to the artists who see it as part of their “canvas,” where the colors of the walls match with the hues in the film.
■ 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 Sept. 19
Photo courtesy of Annie Wang
MBMore, a printmaking arts and crafts store in Taipei’s Datong District (大同區) that regularly showcases cute and quirky artwork, is currently exhibiting Midsummer Night (林夏), a solo exhibition by Hsu Jui-zhi (徐睿志), who prefers to go by the name Muran (沐冉). Plants, pets and barnyard animals are among Muran’s favorite subject matters. While some of his carvings are etched in black and white, others are vibrant and colorful. Yet all of his prints have a domestic, sometimes humorous feel — for instance, a startled-looking Chihuahua wearing a hat, a cat clinging onto a fan that threatens to blow it away or a horse riding on another horse. His prints are definitely something I would hang on my wall if I had a country home with a barnyard-themed kitchen.
■ MBMore (岩筆模), 32-1, Chifeng St, Taipei City (台北市赤峰街32-1號); tel: (02) 2558-3395. Open Tuesday to Sundays from 1pm to 9pm
■ Until Sept. 27
Photo courtesy of MBMore
We rely so much on apps like Google Maps these days, putting our trust in gadgets and believing them to be infallible. An exhibition at Taipei’s Meme Space Gallery seeks to challenge this belief. The Depth of Appearances (表象的深度) consists of artwork by Hsu Xin-wen (許馨文), Chang Po-chieh (張博傑) and Zhao Pin-han (趙品函) that centers on questioning the fine line between appearance and reality. While Hsu’s main subject matter revolves around neighborhoods and living space, Chang tweaks Google Maps and Zhao recreates crime scenes by playing with color and perspective.
■ Meme Space (覓空間), 12F, 9, Roosevelt Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路二段9號12樓); tel: (02) 2396-5505. Open Mondays to Saturdays from 11am to 6pm
■ Until Oct. 3
Frees Art Space in Taipei is currently holding an exhibition, Society of Spectacular (奇觀社會), to highlight work created by artists from the art collective known as Hantoo Art Group (悍圖社). Formed in 1998, the Hantoo Art Group examines Taiwan’s history, mythology and folk culture, often by employing dark humor. Among the artwork displayed are surrealist painter Kuo Wei-guo’s (郭維國) sinister and mythical depictions of himself and of severed animal heads, as well as Chu Hsu-hsien’s (朱書賢) creepy black-and-white 3D animations.
■ 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
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Oct. 8
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built
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