Environmental art is a thing these days. Earlier this year was the Chenglong Wetlands International Environmental Art Project (成龍溼地國際環境藝術計畫) and the Keelung International Marine Art (基隆國際環境藝術季). Last weekend saw the opening of Water and Land: International Projects on Environmental Arts (流‧域：環境藝術國際小聚), organized by Bamboo Curtain Studio (竹圍工作室). The outdoor exhibition, held at the picturesque Tamsui Wharf, features artists and art groups from seven countries, including Taiwanese artist Wu Mali (吳瑪利), The Finger Players (十指幫), a theatre group from Singapore and Ketemu Project Space, a collective of artists and writers from Indonesia. The exhibition aims to raise environmental awareness through various art forms, from sculptures to documentary film. It also addresses topics such as how artists can create art that is environmentally friendly and the meaning of social participation in environmental art.
■ Tamsui Customs Wharf Warehouse C (淡水海關碼頭C棟倉庫), 259, Zhongzheng Rd, New Taipei City (新北市淡水區中正路259號), tel: (02) 8809-3809. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 10am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until Oct. 16
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
Currently on display at Aki Gallery is Japanese artist Hiroko Uehara’s beautiful, transcendent clay and stone sculptures of human-plant beings. The exhibition Deep Forest (森) is inspired by the ancient Japanese belief in animism, or that entities found in nature, such as plants and animals, have spiritual essences. Her sculptures of plants and seedlings take on feminine attributes while flower petals and vines sprout out from the limbs of her female characters, or fingers morph into roots. The result is mesmerizing, as if Uehara’s creatures are telling us to be one with nature — or at least respect it.
■ Aki Gallery (也趣藝廊), 141 Minzu W Rd, Taipei City (台北市民族西路141號), tel: (02) 2599-1171. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6:30pm
■ Until Oct. 30
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
Wang Liang-yin’s (王亮尹) cheerful, whimsical paintings of desserts, balloons and snowmen will be on display at Lin & Lin Gallery starting tomorrow. The exhibition Gift and Dust (禮物與塵埃) explores the effects of consumer culture, notably desire and gluttony, while also evoking nostalgic memories of childhood. The items Wang paints are essentially unnecessary frills — luxuries even — and she very cleverly manages to draw out the paradox inherent in the joy that eating a slice of cake brings us, for instance. Basically, her work poses the question: Are we striving to be better or is it simply human nature to be greedy?
■ Lin & Lin Gallery (大未來林舍畫廊), 16, Dongfeng St, Taipei City (台北市東豐街16號), tel: (02) 2700-6866. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Oct. 30
Photo courtesy of Lin & Lin Gallery
Tomorrow is the opening of Panorama (江湖), a solo exhibition by Chinese artist Yin Zhaoyang (尹朝陽), at Taipei’s Aura Gallery. Though he is known for his pop art paintings of Mao Zedong (毛澤東), it’s Yin’s large-scale expressionist landscape paintings that will be on display. In contrast with his pop art-inspired work, Yin’s landscape paintings infuse Eastern sentiments with influences from 1960s Western abstraction — though the emotions behind the paintings are no less intense. Yin favors evocative colors including deep maroon hues and regal emerald greens. His brush strokes are also bold, intense and highly texturized.
■ Aura Gallery Taipei (亦安畫廊台北), 313, Dunhua N Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段313號); tel: (02) 2752-7002. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 12pm to 7pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Nov. 12
Photo courtesy of Aura Gallery
While it’s not quite lemon season in Taiwan, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum will be filled with lemons — or, more accurately, installations revolving around lemons — starting tomorrow. In 2013, Huang Po-chih (黃博志) set out to raise awareness of the depletion of Taiwan’s farmlands by starting a crowdfunding campaign. Participants donated NT$500 and over the course of two years, 500 lemon trees were planted in abandoned farmlands in Hsinchu and Taoyuan. At the end of the project, each participant received a bottle of the Italian liqueur, Limencello. Five Hundred Lemon Trees: An Organic Archive (五百棵檸檬樹：有機檔案) traces Huang’s journey, including the project planning, initial research and site visits around Taiwan and in different countries. His lemons have also exhibited in China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Germany.
■ 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
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Nov. 27
Photo courtesy of TFAM
Photo courtesy of TFAM
Desperate dads meet in car parks to exchange packets; exhausted parents slip it into their kids’ drinks; families wait months for prescriptions buy it “off label.” But is it worth the risk? “The first time I gave him a gummy, I thought, ‘Oh my God, have I killed him?’ He just passed out in front of the TV. That never happens.” Jen remembers giving her son, David, six, melatonin to help him sleep. She got them from a friend, a pediatrician who gave them to her own child. “It was sort of hilarious. She had half a tub of gummies,
June 23 to June 29 After capturing the walled city of Hsinchu on June 22, 1895, the Japanese hoped to quickly push south and seize control of Taiwan’s entire west coast — but their advance was stalled for more than a month. Not only did local Hakka fighters continue to cause them headaches, resistance forces even attempted to retake the city three times. “We had planned to occupy Anping (Tainan) and Takao (Kaohsiung) as soon as possible, but ever since we took Hsinchu, nearby bandits proclaiming to be ‘righteous people’ (義民) have been destroying train tracks and electrical cables, and gathering in villages
Swooping low over the banks of a Nile River tributary, an aid flight run by retired American military officers released a stream of food-stuffed sacks over a town emptied by fighting in South Sudan, a country wracked by conflict. Last week’s air drop was the latest in a controversial development — private contracting firms led by former US intelligence officers and military veterans delivering aid to some of the world’s deadliest conflict zones, in operations organized with governments that are combatants in the conflicts. The moves are roiling the global aid community, which warns of a more militarized, politicized and profit-seeking trend
The wide-screen spectacle of Formula One gets a gleaming, rip-roaring workout in Joseph Kosinski’s F1, a fine-tuned machine of a movie that, in its most riveting racing scenes, approaches a kind of high-speed splendor. Kosinski, who last endeavored to put moviegoers in the seat of a fighter jet in Top Gun: Maverick, has moved to the open cockpits of Formula One with much the same affection, if not outright need, for speed. A lot of the same team is back. Jerry Bruckheimer produces. Ehren Kruger, a co-writer on Maverick, takes sole credit here. Hans Zimmer, a co-composer previously, supplies the thumping
RSS