Palm trees are beautiful but they are also poignant — just think about what chewing betel nuts can do to your oral health. Lin Yi-wei (林奕維) uses palm trees as a metaphor in his paintings to tell the history of modern Taiwan from Han Chinese immigration to industrialization in his latest solo exhibition, Riverlike Narrative (川型敘事). The title is derived from Yu Lihua’s (於梨華) 1967 novel Again the Palm Trees (又見棕櫚，又見棕櫚), which uses the palm tree as a symbol of rootedness. Notions of identity and belonging are in flux in Lin’s colorful and sleepy paintings, as highways and buildings tear into fields of palm trees.
■ Michael Ku Gallery (谷公館), 4F-2, 21, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段21號4樓之2), tel: (02) 2577-5601. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until June 30
Photo courtesy of Taipei Fine Arts Museum
OCAC Group Exhibition 2016 (打開-當代選2016) is a joint exhibition of nine artists from the Open Contemporary Art Center. According to TKG+ Projects, the exhibition does not have an official title because it is meant to examine how artists construct relationships with one another. Though this may sound like a lazy excuse to evade the work of coming up with a catchy title, it sort of makes sense. Art is usually seen as a solitary pursuit, but it’s helpful to view different artworks by different artists as being in conversation with each other. Included in the lineup is calligrapher Shih Pei-chun (施佩君) as well as photographer and installation artist Hsu Chia-wei (許家維) whose work focuses on the Cold War in Asia. Also on display are the sculptures and installations of Chiu Chen-hong (邱承宏). Chiu’s work, which focuses on factories and the mining industry in Taiwan, exemplifies a hope for humans to foster a better and more holistic relationship with raw materials.
■ TKG+ Projects, B1, 15, Ln 548, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路548巷15號B1), tel: (02) 2659-0798. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until July 3
Photo courtesy of Metaphysical Art Gallery
Chinese sculptor and installation artist Shi Jinsong (史金淞) has never been one to go with the grain. His latest solo exhibition, Shi Jin-song: A Personal Design Show (史金淞：個人設計博), uses bubble machines, hardware tools and other bizarre material to critique social and political systems that are set up to establish “authority” over the way people think and behave. Shi designs a world of his own — motorcycles made out of industrial waste, baby carriages made of armor — in order to deconstruct our world. His work is not just a big “fuck you” to authority, but it also goes to show how liberating it can be if we simply allow ourselves to think outside the conformist box.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (台北當代藝術館, 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
■ Until July 3
Photo courtesy of Michael Ku Gallery
Metaphysical Art Gallery is back with yet another awfully cheery exhibition, Three Travelers Three Epics (三個遊子三首偈), featuring Taiwanese artist Huang Ming-chan (黃銘昌), Chinese artist Ye Yongqing (葉永青) and Shintaro Miyake from Japan, and their colorful paintings inspired by their travels around the world. A realist painter, Huang makes the lush landscapes of Southeast Asia come alive with his depictions of water buffaloes swimming in lotus ponds. Ye’s paintings of migratory birds and flowers in bloom conveys a similar sense of simplicity and freedom. He projects human aspirations onto the creatures he draws, hinting that we could also be as free as they are if we just stopped worrying about worldly things. Finally, Miyake’s paintings of oval-faced cartoon characters as Egyptian pharaohs and gods brings a touch of humor to ancient Egyptian history.
■ 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
■ Until July 9
Japan in the early 20th century was bent on studying Western ways, including art, and Leonard Tsuguharu Foujita was one of the lucky few to travel abroad to learn the trade. Foujita knew no one when he arrived in Paris in 1913, though he soon befriended Picasso, Matisse and other artists who were part of the “School of Paris” (a group of French and foreign artists working in Paris pre-World War I). Foujita’s paintings — whether of female nudes or cats, or nude women holding cats — are all very dainty and witty (think New Yorker covers). Galerie Nichido Taipei is currently exhibiting a collection of Foujita’s paintings, along with artwork by other renowned artists from the School of Paris, including Marie Laurencin, Moise Kisling and Maurice Utrillo. The exhibition is aptly titled Foujita and the School of Paris (藤田嗣治與巴黎畫派).
■ Galerie Nichido Taipei (台北日動畫廊), 3F, 57, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段57號3樓), tel: (02) 2579-8795. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until July 16
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum is currently showcasing a collection of 35 years of artwork by Chinese-born, Taiwan-raised American artist Daniel Lee (李小鏡) in Looking Glass — Daniel Lee Retrospective (鏡 ─ 李小鏡回顧展). Lee, who initially got his start as a portrait photographer in New York in the 1970s, eventually progressed to combining photography, drawings and fine art. His past work includes Manimals (1993) — human-animal hybrids created by interjecting animal characteristics of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac into human portraits via photo generation. Also to be exhibited at TFAM is Next, which is Lee’s latest series of 3D prints and animations that envisions a future where humans have evolved into fish-like creatures and live in water.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM, 台北市立美術館), 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
■ Until Aug. 14
Taiwan can often feel woefully behind on global trends, from fashion to food, and influences can sometimes feel like the last on the metaphorical bandwagon. In the West, suddenly every burger is being smashed and honey has become “hot” and we’re all drinking orange wine. But it took a good while for a smash burger in Taipei to come across my radar. For the uninitiated, a smash burger is, well, a normal burger patty but smashed flat. Originally, I didn’t understand. Surely the best part of a burger is the thick patty with all the juiciness of the beef, the
The ultimate goal of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the total and overwhelming domination of everything within the sphere of what it considers China and deems as theirs. All decision-making by the CCP must be understood through that lens. Any decision made is to entrench — or ideally expand that power. They are fiercely hostile to anything that weakens or compromises their control of “China.” By design, they will stop at nothing to ensure that there is no distinction between the CCP and the Chinese nation, people, culture, civilization, religion, economy, property, military or government — they are all subsidiary
Nov.10 to Nov.16 As he moved a large stone that had fallen from a truck near his field, 65-year-old Lin Yuan (林淵) felt a sudden urge. He fetched his tools and began to carve. The recently retired farmer had been feeling restless after a lifetime of hard labor in Yuchi Township (魚池), Nantou County. His first piece, Stone Fairy Maiden (石仙姑), completed in 1977, was reportedly a representation of his late wife. This version of how Lin began his late-life art career is recorded in Nantou County historian Teng Hsiang-yang’s (鄧相揚) 2009 biography of him. His expressive work eventually caught the attention
This year’s Miss Universe in Thailand has been marred by ugly drama, with allegations of an insult to a beauty queen’s intellect, a walkout by pageant contestants and a tearful tantrum by the host. More than 120 women from across the world have gathered in Thailand, vying to be crowned Miss Universe in a contest considered one of the “big four” of global beauty pageants. But the runup has been dominated by the off-stage antics of the coiffed contestants and their Thai hosts, escalating into a feminist firestorm drawing the attention of Mexico’s president. On Tuesday, Mexican delegate Fatima Bosch staged a
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