Photographer Chiang Kai-chun (江凱群) takes a detached observer approach in his latest solo exhibition Third Person Traveler (第三人稱的過客) at Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts. The works are inspired by the eight years Chiang spent living and working in France, particularly his sense of “otherness” being in a foreign land. Normally, the artistic process involves editing, revising and tweaking, but Chiang eliminates this step in his work, and, as a result, the exhibition is a series of rough drafts. It’s refreshing in the sense that viewers see the artist’s thought process rather than a curated final image. Though the question still remains: Is art ever truly objective?
■ 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
■ Until Feb. 12
Photo courtesy of Liang Gallery
Some may call Filipino artist Oscar Villamiel’s installations grotesque — entire rooms filled with decapitated doll heads on stakes and contorted Barbie dolls lining the walls — but he prefers to see them as providing viewers with another way in which to perceive beauty. In Unchanging Ever Changing (恆變), which opens at Mind Set Art Center tomorrow, Villamiel continues piecing together found objects, in this case, bird’s feathers and fishing net fibers. He does this to draw attention to the vast beauty of the world from sky to sea. By binding the feathers with fishnets and placing them in wooden boxes, Villamiel also alludes to the interconnectedness of life and nature.
■ Mind Set Art Center (安卓藝術), 7F, 180, Heping E Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市和平東路一段180號7樓), tel: (02) 2365-6008. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 11am to 6pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Feb. 18
Photo courtesy of Liang Gallery
Opening tomorrow at Liang Gallery is Landscape and Imagery — Group Exhibition of Senior Taiwanese Artists (風景 · 意象 — 台灣前輩藝術家聯展), a joint exhibition of artists including Chen Te-wang (陳德旺), Li Mei-shu (李梅樹) and Yang San-lang (楊三郎), all of whom contributed greatly to impressionist and post-impressionist movements in Taiwan throughout the 20th century. The paintings serve as a time capsule of the history of Taiwan over the same period. Landscapes evolve, as well as modes of transportation and the ways in which people go about their daily lives. What remains constant are depictions of Taiwan’s natural beauty, which also serves as a reminder of the importance of taking care of it.
■ Liang Gallery (尊彩藝術中心), 366, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路366號), tel: (02) 2797-1100. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Feb. 26
Photo courtesy of Art Issue Projects
Japanese sculptors occupy the limelight at Aki Gallery with the opening of Forms and Essence — Contemporary Japanese Sculpture (型態與本質 — 日本當代雕塑) tomorrow. After a successful solo show at Art Taipei, Aki brings back the works of Katsura Funakoshi and three other sculptors: Kunihiro Akinaga, Satoru Koizumi and Takafumi Yagi. While Akinaga renders animal bones aesthetically beautiful, forcing the viewer to think about the ways in which society is desensitized to death and violence, Koizumi’s wooden sculptures of children dressed in animal outfits encourages us to channel our inner child and playfulness.
■ 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
■ Opens tomorrow. Until Feb. 26
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
Opening tomorrow at Art Issue Projects is Trace (痕跡), a solo exhibition by Wu I-chien (吳怡蒨), which captures her impressions of changing urban landscapes. Harried brush strokes and contemplative color palates forces the viewer to speed up and slow down. Though the subject matter appears somewhat abstract Wu’s paintings create the impression of holding a magnifying glass over something, whether it be a small crack in a wall or a piece of dirt lying on the sidewalk. Wu’s work suggests that we gain a better understanding of ourselves if we simply take the time and effort to be more attune of our surroundings and the traces we leave behind.
■ Art Issue Projects (藝術計劃), 32, Ln 407, Tiding Blvd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市堤頂大道二段407巷32號), tel: (02) 2659-7737. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until March 12
Photo courtesy of Mind Set Art Center
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
Scott Saulters wasn’t sure if his film had just taken one of the two top prizes at a recent film competition. Although Saulters has been in Taiwan for 15 years and is proficient in Mandarin, the award ceremony for the inaugural “Bi Tian Iann” (眯電影) short film contest was conducted entirely in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), a language he can’t speak. “I thought I heard it, but I didn’t want to look too excited,” he says. Despite his limited command of the tongue, Saulter’s entry, Wu Yu Tzu (烏魚子, mullet roe), took first place in the amateur category of the
The Taiwan of yesteryear was dominated in whole or in part by the Dutch, Spanish, Qing Empire and Japanese. But is the Taiwanese name for a popular edible fish derived from the Portuguese language? Cheng Wei-chung (鄭維中), an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Taiwan History, says yes. The fish in question is the narrow-barred Spanish mackerel, which was listed in early 18th century Qing local gazetteers as Taiwanese specialities alongside milk fish and mullet, according to Cheng’s paper, “Mullet, narrow-barred Spanish mackerel and milkfish: Multiple contextual developments of three certified seafood specilaities in Taiwan, from the
I didn’t expect to spend more than three minutes out of my car, yet the sun was so brutal I put on my hat before approaching the seawall. Beimen (北門) is the flattest and most sun-baked part of Tainan. It lacks trees and people. In wintertime, the weather is often delightful. It wasn’t yet mid-morning in the hot season, however, and I felt like a leaf shriveling in the desert. Atop the seawall but facing inland, I could see dozens of the rectangular ponds which account for a significant percentage of Beimen’s “land” area. Some, no doubt, were dug to produce
Aug. 10 to Aug. 16 They called him the “No Problem Doctor” (沒關係醫生) because that’s what he always told his patients when they couldn’t pay up. Operating the only clinic in Changhua County’s Pusin Township (埔心) during the 1950s, Hsu Tsai-chih (許再枝) knew that life was difficult in his remote hometown. “They barely had enough to survive, so it was pointless to chase after them for the money,” an 81-year-old Hsu told the United Daily News in 2002. “I just went with the flow, some offered to pay me back years later but I had already forgotten
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