Zhang Xu-zhan (張徐展) creates fantastical black comedy animations that combine the use of modern technology and traditional paper sculpture craft. His solo exhibition Si So Mi is a continuation of his ongoing animation series Hsin Hsin Joss Paper Store Series (紙人展與新興糊紙店系列). The title of the series takes its name from his family’s business of making and selling paper houses, dolls, animals, flowers and other forms of paper effigies for religious rituals and ceremonial occasions. While these paper objects are usually intended for celebration and mourning, the artist adopts his ancestral craft from an original artistic perspective. Creating animated scenes out of newspaper, glazed paper and starch paste, Zhang contemplates the rituals and aesthetics that surround death. In this exhibition, the featured short film Si So Mi tells a tale of paper mice dancing to the German folk song Ach wie ist’s moglich dann. According to the artist, the song reflects on the finite nature of our ever-changing cultural landscape and material reality.
■ Project Fulfill Art Space (就在藝術空間) 2, Alley 45, Lane 147, Xinyi Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市信義路3段147巷45弄2號1樓), tel: (02) 2707-6942. Opens Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opening reception tomorrow; until Jan. 20
Photo courtesy of VT Art Salon
Yao Jui-chung (姚瑞中) is a prolific artist known for his photography and painting projects that address Taiwan’s historical memories and cultural landscape with a distinct critical tone and dark wit. His solo exhibition Incarnation (巨神連線 — 姚瑞中個展) includes 300 gelatin prints and a three-channel video installation that documents deities from 230 temples, cemeteries, public gardens and amusement parks across Taiwan. To the artist, these religious statues embody the hopes and desires of their devotees and their presence reflects the local relationship between man, religion and faith. The photographed statues range from small statues enshrined on temple altars to larger-than-life gods that measure up to several meters high. The giant gods are proportionate to the desires of the humans who have erected them; they stand with great presence against the backdrop of Taiwan’s modern cityscapes. At the show opening tomorrow, catch a special performance by Hwang Da-wang (黃大旺), and Meuko Meuko, who will present a modern take on the sounds and images associated with local cultural and religious beliefs.
■ TKG+ Projects , B1, 15, Lane 548, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市內湖區瑞光路548巷15號B1), tel: (02) 7730-7809. Opens Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opening reception tomorrow; until Jan. 28
Photo courtesy of Galerie Naissance
Coming into its fifth year, Art Kaohsiung 2017 (高雄藝術博覽會) continues to build momentum as a platform for business and exchange in the East Asian art market. The fair includes exhibitors across Taiwan, China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Myanmar and Russia. This is the first year for Myanmar’s Bo Nyan collection and Mandalay Way Fine Arts; they are offering modern and contemporary works, including the luscious paintings of Win Pe Myint. Also debuting at the fair is China-based Youpin Space (佑品空間), which features Li Yu (李郁) and Liu Bo’s (劉波) collaborative black-and-white video that shifts between factual news footage and artificial manipulation. Aside from the gallery section, the fair’s thematic exhibition places special emphasis on contemporary art in Vietnam and China. The fair has chosen to illustrate its China focus from the perspective of Hubei, diving into its regional history, art community and developments.
■ Pier-2 Art Center, Dayong Warehouse (駁二藝術特區 — 大勇倉庫), 1, Dayong Rd, Kaohsiung City (高雄市大勇路1號), tel: (07) 521-4899
■ City Suites — Kaohsiung (城市商旅 高雄真愛館), 1, Dayi St, Kaohsiung City (高雄市大義街1號), tel: (07) 521-5116, Friday to Saturday from 11am to 7pm, Sunday from 11am to 6pm
Photo courtesy of Project Fulfill Art Space
■ Until Dec. 30
Chen Kun-feng’s (陳崑峰) solo exhibition Lost Landscapes (遺地風景) shows a series of paintings based on his hometown Siaoliouciou Island (小琉球). Working from memories, dreams and old photographs, the artist processes his attachment to the island’s Baisha Port (白沙港), its ferries, the sea and scenes on the island that have since transformed over the years. To the artist, these paintings are considered collages, in which he works through his sense of identity and belonging, and the spiritual meaning of his hometown and childhood. As he looked over old photographs, his mind overlaid the captured spaces as they are now with how they were before. And in this process, he sought to understand the natural process of change. The triptych Beautiful Liang Tai (美哉良台) depitcts Liang Tai Express, a boat that commutes between Siaoliouciou Island and Pingtung County’s Donggang Township (東港). Lost Landscapes (遺地風景) is another three-part painting divided by blue, gray and purple color schemes. The busy harbor scene in this piece is overlaid with geometric shapes that seem to add a level of cryptic abstraction to the harbor’s objective reality.
■ VT Art Salon (非常廟藝文空間), B1, 17, Lane 56, Xinsheng N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市新生北路三段56巷17號B1), tel: (02) 2597-2525. Opens Tuesdays to Fridays from 11:30am to 7pm, Saturdays 1:30pm to 9pm
Photo courtesy of TKG+
■ Until Dec. 30
Tobacco, Carpet, Lunch Box, Textile Machinery and Cave Man: The Narratives of Craftmanship and Technology in Contemporary Art (菸葉、地毯、便當、紡織機、穴居人:當代藝術中的工藝及技術敘事) is a group exhibition that seeks to explore the concept of craftsmanship in contemporary art. The show’s Japanese curator Nobuo Takamori says “the greatest difference between crafts-based art and narrative or conceptual art is that crafts-based art preserves a space for appreciation of skill.” Such appreciation of skill may stem from an artist’s use of material that is difficult to control, devoting time and attention to a particular skillset, or an original way of manipulating material. Vietnamese artist Truong Minh Quy’s film A Letter from Home to Origin speaks about the history of the Ruc people and their encounter with forced relocation and new ways of living. Hou I-ting’s (侯怡亭) White Uniform (白制服) is a series of prints and video that speak to Taiwan’s culture of prepared lunch boxes served on the railway. The work addresses the influences of Japanese colonization and their injection of cultural domination through cuisine and technology. Kuo Yu-ping’s (郭俞平) painting My Little Black Book (小黑書) depicts delicate portraits of humans, animals and flowers painted with high concentration and control of material.
■ Hong-gah Museum (鳳甲美術館), 11F, 166, Daye Rd, Taipei City (台北市大業路166號11樓), tel: (02) 2897-3980. Opens Tuesdays to Sundays from 10:30am to 5:30pm
■ Until Feb. 4
Oct. 21 to Oct. 27 Sanbanqiao Cemetery (三板橋) was once reserved for prominent Japanese residents of Taipei, including former governor-general Motojiro Akashi, who died in Japan in 1919 but requested to be buried in Taiwan. Akashi may have reconsidered his decision if he had known that by the 1980s, his grave had been overrun by the city’s largest illegal settlement, which contained more than 1,000 households and a bustling market with around 170 stalls. Fans of Taiwan New Cinema would recognize the slum, as it was featured in several of director Wan Jen’s (萬仁) films about Taipei’s disadvantaged, including The Sandwich
“Wish You Luck is not just a culinary experience, it’s a continuation of our cultural tradition,” says James Vuong (王豪豐), owner of the Daan District (大安) Hong Kong diner. On every corner of Kowloon, diners pack shoulder-to-shoulder over strong brews of Hong-Kong-style milk tea, chowing down on French Toast and Cantonese noodles. Hong Kong’s ubiquitous diner-style teahouses, known as chachaanteng (茶餐廳), have been a cultural staple of the city since the 1950s. “They play an essential role in the daily lives of Hongkongers,” says Vuong. Wish You Luck (祝您行運) offers that same vibrant melting pot of culture and cuisine. In
Much noise has been made lately on X (Twitter), where posters both famed and not have contended that Taiwan is stupid for eliminating nuclear power, which, the comments imply, is necessary to provide the nation with power in the event of a blockade. This widely circulated claim, typically made by nuclear power proponents, is rank nonsense. In 2021, Ian Easton, an expert on Taiwan’s defenses and the plans of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to break them, discussed the targeting of nuclear power plants in wartime (“Ian Easton On Taiwan: Are Taiwan’s nuclear plants safe from Beijing?”, April 12, 2021). The
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