Chen Che (陳澈) is a Taiwanese illustrator, printmaker and bookmaker who explores the connections between people, memory and space in detailed pen and pencil drawings. Her solo exhibition, Dr. Wormhole: Make Do Plan (蟲洞博士: 權宜之計), at Mangasick presents a selection of original drawings and risograph prints from her latest illustration book Dr. Wormhole #5. A make-do plan is an unstoppable machine that knows it will not succeed, says the artist. She takes it as a metaphor for day-to-day life, which continues to carry on like an algorithm. The artist began putting out annual compilations of her drawings five years ago when she was still studying illustration at University of Brighton. She draws inspiration from architecture, fashion and comics, delving into the histories of each field. Chen’s work often incorporates text as symbolic icons in a visual landscape. Her Childhood (她的童年) features a wide-eyed young girl walking an animal-like creature on a trolley in a dark, ominous space. A dialogue bubble next to the creature contains the words “will die” in Chinese, setting up a tone of fear in this introspective scenario. South (南) depicts a woman at a pier resting on a motorcycle; her left hand holds a mobile object while she waits for the arrival of an incoming ship.
■ Mangasick, B1, 2, Alley 10, Ln 244, Roosevelt Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路3段244巷10弄2號B1), tel: (02) 2369-9969. Open Thursdays to Tuesdays from 2pm to 10pm
■ Until April 3
Photo Courtesy of Onfoto Studio
Rebellion of Image (影像的謀反) is a group exhibition of video art that reflects on social issues through multi-channel experimental narratives. The show is prompted by a shared sense of “discontent and doubt of reality,” writes MOCA, Taipei in a press release. In particular, the show is an artistic protest against the imbalance of political power as manifested in global “capital flows, population migration, religion and national power.” While video art, which emerged in the 60s, has traditionally resisted and challenged the concept of narrative, the five artists featured in the show embrace narrative as a tool to engage with specific social incidents and relevant grand narratives. Berlin-based Israeli artist Yael Bartana’s Inferno is a one-channel video installation based on a 2014 replica of the first Temple of Solomon built by a Brazilian neo-Pentecostal group in Sao Paulo. The destruction of the original temple “signaled the diaspora of the Jewish people in the 6th century BC,” writes the artist on her Web site. Through her cinematic film, she hopes to “provide insight into the complex realities of Latin America that have given rise to the temple project.” Ten Thousand Waves by Isaac Julien is a complex installation of nine double-sided projections inspired by the 2004 drowning of Chinese cockle pickers on a flooded sandbank in northwest England. In this work, Julien collaborates with a number of artistic talents — including Chinese video artist Yang Fudong(楊福東) and actress Maggie Cheung (張曼玉) — to create a mixed narrative between contemporary and ancient Chinese culture.
■ 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) 2552-3721. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until May 6
Photo Courtesy of Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei
Featuring sound and light installations, works on canvas, drawings and video works, Turkish-Dutch artist Fahrettin Orenli’s solo exhibition, 3D Sunset — The Soul of the Earth City, is currently on view at Project Fulfill Space. The title of the exhibition implies an immersive, artificial environment that is made to simulate a natural, three-dimensional world. This is an apt description of the reality we live in today, according to the gallery in a press release, we “accept the control of an immense organized system on our perceptible world, driven by socio-economical and political forces.” The show is an extension of Orenli’s 2016 exhibition, High Heels, presented in Israel that delved into social, political and economic factors that shape human civilization. The present show expands on these thematic concerns in the context of Taipei, which he visited briefly on a research trip in 2016. BLIND SEOUL depicts a busy universe of crowds, cityscapes and abstractions of eroded textures encapsulated in a silhouette of a man. 3D Sunset from EU is a painterly print of a cyber cityscape rendered with digital noise and crude pixelated contours.
■ Project Fulfill Art Space (就在藝術空間), 2, Alley 45, Ln 147, Xinyi Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市信義路三段147巷45弄2號), tel: (02) 2707-6942. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm
■ Until April 7
Photo Courtesy of Project Fulfill Space
Currently on view at Huashan 1914 Creative Park is a joint exhibition of arts and crafts by the Japanese Ainu tribe and the Taiwanese Kavalan people (噶瑪蘭族). Organized by lifestyle brand Kamaro’an, Ainu’s & Kavalan’s Ornamentation Worldview (紋飾的世界觀 — 北海道愛努族與新社噶瑪蘭族紋飾聯展) features an array of hand-made products for sale, including traditional clothing, intricately carved wooden plates, embroidered gloves and textile woven with tree bark thread. The Ainu and Kavalan share a passion for ornamental patterns and often draw inspiration from animal and plant life. The Ainu often integrate into their art abstracted shapes of the eye, fins, scales and water patterns. The Kavalan, on the other hand, employ patterns such as the tortoise, the crab and terrace field patterns. The exhibition aims to promote traditional arts and crafts that embody cultural memory and ancient wisdom.
■ Huashan 1914 Creative Park (華山1914文化創意產業園區), 1, Bade Road Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市八德路一段1號), tel: (02) 2358-1914. Open Mondays to Fridays from 11am to 7pm, Saturdays to Sundays from 11am to 9pm
■ Until April 30
Gao Mingxi (高明昔) is an award winning, young Chinese artist who mediates his personal journey of spirituality through photo illustration, a type of computer art that is based on manipulating digital photography with various digital and non-digital effects. In his solo exhibition, Moses, Gao presents three photographic series that ponder the essence of human beings, god and the natural world. “The spiritual prophecies that guide us away from our pain and anxiousness are perhaps abstractions of our faith and need for belonging,” says Gao in a press statement. Gao’s photographs often exude a feeling of stillness and sadness that, on closer view, embodies clues of light in the darkness. Cain & Abel is a modern interpretation of the tragic Biblical story about Adam and Eve’s two sons. Gao’s photograph depicts a man solemnly dressed with his face covered by a pair of hands out-stretched from behind. Event Horizon depicts a lone naked person against a barren landscape. The person’s upper torso is represented by a mist of black dots, while the bottom torso is depicted in a naturalist manner. According to the artist, this photograph tells an allegory of a helpless man standing at the precipice of a black hole.
■ Onfoto Studio, 22, Lane 286, Shitung St, Taipei City (台北市士東路286巷22號), tel: (02) 8866-1982. Contact the gallery for viewing.
■ Until April 22
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
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