Puppet and You (偶與你之間) is a one-day exhibition of over 100 Taiwanese glove puppets from the collection of Chang Yi Fang Puppet & Pattern Creations (彰藝坊偶相與花樣工作室). The founder of the studio, Chen Yi-hsih (陳羿錫), has extensive knowledge of the puppet-making craft, owing to his father and grandfather who both made a living with their family-run puppet theater troupe. While the origins of Chinese puppetry can be traced to Chuanzhou, China, the art was brought to Taiwan by Chinese immigrants during the Qing Dynasty and has flourished with distinct local styles ever since. Chen hails from Changhua, home of Taiwanese glove puppetry. He moved to Taipei in the 1990s to set up Taiwan’s first puppetry specialty shop. Over the years the shop has created numerous wood-carved dolls as well as developed a fiberglass version more suitable for children. Collectible puppets differ from those used for performances, Chen says. Their family collection includes characters of all kinds, including Chung Kwei (鍾馗), Guan Yu (關羽) and the Monkey King, Su Wu Kong (孫悟空).
■ Chang Yi Fang Puppet & Pattern Creations (彰藝坊偶相與花樣工作室) 27, Ln 47, Yongkang St, Taipei City (台北市永康街47巷27號), tel: (02) 3393 7330. Contact studio for opening hours
■ Sunday from 1pm to 5pm
Photo Courtesy of the artist
Veteran Korean painter Park Seo-bo is known for his iconic painting series Ecriture, in which he pursues a reductive approach to action painting. His work combines the influences of Western abstract painting with Korean brush painting, seeking a balanced art practice that involves meditative action and creative experimentation. The series first began in the 1960s and has evolved through different phases of explorations without losing focus of his central belief in emptiness and dualist thinking. In the 1970s, Park discussed his intentions: “I painted nothing, my work had no form, no emphasis and no ins-and-outs, except for the pure vibration coming out of not doing anything — an action through non-action.” His debut solo exhibition in Taiwan, Pursuit of Inner Self, will open on Saturday at Taipei’s Art Issue Projects. The show includes old and new works from Ecriture, including a new body of paintings inspired by the red maple trees of Mount Bandai in Japan’s Fukushima, where he had previously sojourned.
■ 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 7:30pm
■ Until April 8
Photo Courtesy of Taiwan International Cat Film Festival
Tapetum Lucidum is the third edition of Taiwan International Cat Film Festival curated by Liu Yong-hao (劉永皓) and Li Ming-yu (李明宇). The title refers to a part of the eye that greatly enhances night vision in some animals, such as cats. Drawing from this theme of alternative vision, the curators propose questions concerning perception and truth as reflected in the practice of art, film and science. The festival’s three-day film program features works by 12 local and international artists, many of them cat aficionados. Headlining the festival is Japanese artist Obitani Yuri’s Your Intruder, a highly stylistic film that chronicles the domestic life of a Japanese man disrupted by the intrusion of a cat. The film is experimental in form, combining long shots, camera movements and vocal performances. Jeff Zorrilla’s Nica’s Family Grows, documents the process of building a pet cat family for his cat Nica. Huang Hsiao-yen’s (黃小燕) Niu Niu Hsia Hsia Chiao Chiao is about her life living with three cats and their intimate emotional bond as one household. The festival offers an aesthetic take on our domestic relationships with animals.
■ TheCube Space (立方空間) 2F, 13, Roosevelt Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路四段136巷1弄13號2樓), tel: (02) 2468 9418. Open Wednesdays to Sundays from 2pm to 8pm
■ Until Sunday
Photo Courtesy of Chang Yi Fang Puppet and Pattern Creations
Rubanee (李雅雯) is a young Taiwanese artist who creates dreamlike illustrations that question what it means to be Asian and female. She perceives her art practice as process of self discovery, in which she develops her own interpretation of the female gaze. Working with acrylic and pen-on-paper, Rubanee’s works are vibrantly colorful, picturesque narratives; the meticulous detail she often puts in her work suggests a joyful pleasure in the process of describing her inner world. NOW Space is presently hosting a solo exhibition of Rubanee’s recent work, Kirakira. X’MAS break up is a diaristic account of her experience falling out of love. The drawing features voluptuous women, as portraits of the artist’s self, who play out the artist’s painful memories of amnesia, epic film watching and nostalgia. Wall of Fem is a series of eight female portraits that demonstrate the artist’s idea of female strength and self-confidence. One portrait in particular features a woman figure with sensual curves, posed in the manner of Botticeli’s Venus as she modestly covers her nakedness with folding arms. According to the artist, through her art she tries to give a voice to the Asian female perspective.
■ NOW Space (鬧空間) 3F, 58, Yanping S Rd, Taipei City (台北市延平南路58號3F), tel: 0987-444- 957. Open Wednesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 8:30pm
■ Until Sunday
Photo Courtesy of Taiwan International Cat Film Festival
“ I just phoned The Grand Macondon Hotel. ” She said. is an art exhibition that accompanies the release of art journal Waterfall’s latest issue, A Hundred Years of Solitude. The exhibition extends from one of the chapters in the journal that describes a place where the past can be resurrected in the present and where visitors come to seek temporary escape from their realities. “At one point, history and real life would tangle with stories and fantasies... When we look at it in other angles or how we interpret it alternatively, we’ve forged a new-born story/history,” the journal writes in a press release. The exhibition provides impressions of this fictional place through a display of artworks created by artists featured in the journal. Lin Yi-chi’s (林羿綺) Requiem for a Dream of Father is a video that drifts between memories and dreams. Through methods that involve brain imaging, hypnosis and ritualistic re-enactments, the artist traces her childhood memories of her father through a fragmented narration. Yun-yu Ayo Shih’s (施昀佑) A Manual, How to Bribe a Cop in Columbia is a collaborative study of Columbia’s culture of bribery based on the artist’s personal experiences as well as 600 online surveys and 350 interviews. Written in the manner of a technical guide, the book provides dialogue tactics, case studies and an overview of body gestures and verbal language used in the act of bribery. A talk is scheduled for the last day of the exhibition, featuring artist and curator Shauba Chang (章芷珩) and novelist Chen Yu-chin (陳又津).
■ Pon Ding (朋丁) 3F, Ln 53, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市中山區中山北路一段53巷6號), tel: (02) 2537-7281. Open daily from 11am to 8pm
■ Until March 4
Photo Courtesy of Chang Yi Fang Puppet & Pattern Creations
Taiwan, once relegated to the backwaters of international news media and viewed as a subset topic of “greater China,” is now a hot topic. Words associated with Taiwan include “invasion,” “contingency” and, on the more cheerful side, “semiconductors” and “tourism.” It is worth noting that while Taiwanese companies play important roles in the semiconductor industry, there is no such thing as a “Taiwan semiconductor” or a “Taiwan chip.” If crucial suppliers are included, the supply chain is in the thousands and spans the globe. Both of the variants of the so-called “silicon shield” are pure fantasy. There are four primary drivers
The sprawling port city of Kaohsiung seldom wins plaudits for its beauty or architectural history. That said, like any other metropolis of its size, it does have a number of strange or striking buildings. This article describes a few such curiosities, all but one of which I stumbled across by accident. BOMBPROOF HANGARS Just north of Kaohsiung International Airport, hidden among houses and small apartment buildings that look as though they were built between 15 and 30 years ago, are two mysterious bunker-like structures that date from the airport’s establishment as a Japanese base during World War II. Each is just about
Two years ago my wife and I went to Orchid Island off Taitung for a few days vacation. We were shocked to realize that for what it cost us, we could have done a bike vacation in Borneo for a week or two, or taken another trip to the Philippines. Indeed, most of the places we could have gone for that vacation in neighboring countries offer a much better experience than Taiwan at a much lower price. Hence, the recent news showing that tourist visits to Pingtung County’s Kenting, long in decline, reached a 27 year low this summer came
The female body is a horror movie waiting to happen. From puberty and the grisly onset of menstruation, in pictures such as Brian De Palma’s Carrie and John Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps, to pregnancy and childbirth — Rosemary’s Baby is the obvious example — women have provided a rich seam of inspiration for genre film-makers over the past half century. But look a little closer and two trends become apparent: the vast majority of female body-based horror deals with various aspects of the reproductive system, and it has largely been made by men (Titane and The First Omen, two recent examples
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