IT Park Gallery has been transformed into a wooly underwater world thanks to Tsui Hui-yu’s (崔惠宇) knitted coral installations. Fulfilling Silence (沈默最滿) continues Tsui’s explorations into the depths of her unconscious, with her thoughts and desires manifesting themselves in reefs, algae and sea creatures set against a backdrop of her colorful ink drawings which appear to be a meshing of plant parts and human limbs — though not in a revolting way. The broken fragments seem to represent the artist trying to make sense of the world around her, but there’s also a sense of letting go and learning to appreciate the randomness of nature for what it is.
■ IT Park Gallery (伊通公園), 2F-3F, 41 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街41號2-3樓), tel: (02) 2507-7243. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 1pm to 10pm
■ Until Jan. 7
Photo courtesy of MOCA
On display at Digital Art Center is ~ / !, a solo exhibition by Lin Pei-ying (林沛瑩). Lin is one of the co-founders of the Taiwanese BioArt Community (台灣生物藝術社群), a group that seeks to bring together artists and scientists through events like salons, book clubs and even speed dating between artists and scientists. She frequently uses living organisms in her own work, combining art and biotechnology. PSX Consultancy, which stands for “Plant Sex Consultancy,” looks at how plants reproduce and draws comparisons and contrasts to how humans have sex. In Smallpox Syndrome, Lin imagines how vaccines will evolve in the future and in Minimal Nano Diet, she imagines a world where humans are consuming primarily nano-food, or food that is cultivated, processed or pacakaged by nanotechnology.
■ Digital Art Center (台北數位藝術中心), 180, Fuhua Rd, Taipei City (台北市福華路180號), tel: (02) 7736-0708. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until Jan. 27
Photo courtesy of Metaphysical Art Gallery
Post Ecolonialism Project (後植民計畫) began in 2010 when Chen Hung-yi (陳泓易) started planting trees in ecological hotspots — places where the environment is under threat — throughout Taiwan. He was soon joined by artists and students who planted trees in places that were devastated by typhoons. The project soon morphed into a traveling exhibition, stopping in the Bois des Moutiers in France earlier this year, before making its current stop at Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (台北當代藝術館, MOCA, Taipei). The videos see the act of tree-planting as a metaphor for updating and re-examining the genre of Chinese landscape painting.
■ 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 Jan. 15
Photo courtesy of Metaphysical Art Gallery
The Extension of Medium (媒材的性格擴張), which opens at Nunu Fine Art on Sunday, will exhibit the work of artists from around the world whose practice attempts to alter our ideas artistic mediums. The exhibition includes German artist Peter Zimmermann’s paintings of colorful blotches that resemble pigmentation on the screen of a smartphone or laptop, over which he sprays a glossy coat of epoxy resin. Belgian artist Stijn Ank’s plaster sculptures look like minimalistic 3D paintings. The works of six artists from the Philippines will be featured as well and they range from Yeo Kaa’s upbeat, florescent paintings of grotesque yet magical creatures to Johanna Helmuth’s dark, monochrome paintings of erotically-charged scenes.
■ Nunu Fine Art (路由藝術), 5, Ln 67, Jinshan S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市金山南路1段67巷5號), tel: (02) 3322-6207. Open Wednesdays to Sundays from noon to 7pm
■ Opens Sunday. Until Feb. 5
Photo courtesy of Digital Art Center
Traces of Beads (水珠的痕跡), a selection of paintings by South Korean artist Kim Tschang-yuel, begins tomorrow at Metaphysical Art Gallery. The 86-year-old Kim was one of the “founding fathers” of the Korean monochrome movement known as Danseakhwa, which sought to reconcile the country’s cultural identity with that of western notions of modernity. The movement also stressed simplicity and many Danseakhwa painters indeed spent their lives painting a single stripe across blank canvases. Kim, however, has dedicated his life to something more exciting — painting water droplets, including water droplets against blank backdrops and set against backdrops with Chinese characters. Decades of practice must have paid off because his water droplets are eerily realistic.
■ 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
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Feb. 26
Photo courtesy of IT Park Gallery
Photo courtesy of Digital Art Center
In 2012, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) heroically seized residences belonging to the family of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “purchased with the proceeds of alleged bribes,” the DOJ announcement said. “Alleged” was enough. Strangely, the DOJ remains unmoved by the any of the extensive illegality of the two Leninist authoritarian parties that held power in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan. If only Chen had run a one-party state that imprisoned, tortured and murdered its opponents, his property would have been completely safe from DOJ action. I must also note two things in the interests of completeness.
Taiwan is especially vulnerable to climate change. The surrounding seas are rising at twice the global rate, extreme heat is becoming a serious problem in the country’s cities, and typhoons are growing less frequent (resulting in droughts) but more destructive. Yet young Taiwanese, according to interviewees who often discuss such issues with this demographic, seldom show signs of climate anxiety, despite their teachers being convinced that humanity has a great deal to worry about. Climate anxiety or eco-anxiety isn’t a psychological disorder recognized by diagnostic manuals, but that doesn’t make it any less real to those who have a chronic and
When Bilahari Kausikan defines Singapore as a small country “whose ability to influence events outside its borders is always limited but never completely non-existent,” we wish we could say the same about Taiwan. In a little book called The Myth of the Asian Century, he demolishes a number of preconceived ideas that shackle Taiwan’s self-confidence in its own agency. Kausikan worked for almost 40 years at Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reaching the position of permanent secretary: saying that he knows what he is talking about is an understatement. He was in charge of foreign affairs in a pivotal place in
Just far enough out of reach to keep big crowds away, but not so far as to make a day-trip an exhausting affair, Jinhuang Hot Spring (近黃溫泉) is a nice winter escape for your next visit to Taitung County. The pools are numerous, the water is the perfect temperature and the walk in is not too challenging, though you will have to get your feet wet. The adventure starts in the county’s Jinlun Village (金崙), which is accessible by train, but you’ll want to have your own car, scooter or bicycle for this trip. If you arrive by train, walk up
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