The Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (台北當代藝術館, MOCA, Taipei ) tomorrow opens Stories We Tell to Scare Ourselves With (烏鬼), an ambitious group show that includes 22 artists from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, the UK and Australia. The Chinese title of the show wugui literally means “dark ghosts.” In the context of Taiwanese history, the term “refers collectively to the slaves brought by 17th century European colonizers to Taiwan,” writes curator Jason Wee (黃漢沖). Drawing on a shared colonial past between Southeast Asian countries, the show examines the traces of empirical fixtures that remain in the region today. Chitti Kasemkitvatana is a Thai artist and curator who lived as a Buddhist monk from 2002 and 2010 in the northern forests of Thailand. His display of digital prints and research material revolves around the history of the Menam River, a name used by Europeans to refer to Chao Phraya, Thailand’s major waterway. Norberto Roldan is a Filipino artist who founded Black Artists in Asia, an art group engaged in socially and politically progressive practices. His textile work, Demokrasya, is part of a larger banner series that speaks of the struggles against colonial rule and corruption in the Philippines.
■ Museum of Contemporary Art (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) 2559-6615. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until April 14th
Photo Courtesy of National Palace Museum
A Closer Look at Chinese Painting (看畫．讀畫—歷代名蹟選萃) features a selection of historical works from the National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院) and provides an overview of major trends and developments in Chinese art. The exhibition preface compares Chinese painting history to “a marvelous symphony,” in which the styles and traditions of figure, landscape and bird-and-flower painting weave a continuous song of Chinese art. The show illustrates this epic symphony with a narration of artistic developments from the Six Dynasties (222-589 AD) to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912). Foundations for literati painting were laid in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1126), a time when scholars and artists began to push for painting that went beyond form and appearance and focused on expressing underlying ideas and meanings. Schools of the literati tradition continued to thrive from the Yuan Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty with various mandates of revivalism, individual expression and minimalism. Exhibition highlights include Ming Dynasty painter Dong Qichang’s (董其昌) Imitating the Brush Idea of Yan Wengui (明董其昌仿燕文貴筆意), a dynamic composition of land forms that convert Northern Song artist Yan Wengui’s (燕文貴) original hand scroll into a vertical format.
■ National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院), 221 Zhishan Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市至善路二段221號), tel: (02) 2881-2021. Open daily from 8:30am to 6:30pm; closes at 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays
■ Until March 25
Photo Courtesy of Free Art Space
Back to Originality and Simplicity (返璞歸真—日本當代水墨展) is a Japanese contemporary ink exhibition featuring five post-war Japanese artists. Curated by Wang Yu-ling (王玉齡) and organized by White Stone Gallery (白石畫廊), the show is the first part in a series that aims to introduce outstanding Japanese contemporary artists to Taiwan and the developmental trends for Japanese contemporary ink art. The show presents several works by the late Takeo Yamaguchi, including Untitled, a minimalistic composition of geometric shapes that channels a powerful sense of introspection. Yuichi Inoue is a contemporary of Yamaguchi known for his abstract, calligraphic ink paintings. “His works are simple yet vigorous and powerful, which are filled with vitality and emotions,” writes the gallery. Shiho Fujiwara and Kiro Uehara represent the second postwar generation and demonstrate a keen interest in material experimentation and diverse media. Fujiawara’s new ink on paper series, Deployment of the Folding, are black and white abstractions that mediate the artist’s continual interest in the power of nature. Yuuna Okanishi, the youngest artist in the show, creates ink paintings and calligraphic works that channel her concerns for world peace. Her new painting series, Blue Song, features abstract representations of sharks swimming in the ocean.
■ White Stone Gallery (白石畫廊), 1 Jihu Rd, Taipei City (台北市基湖路1號), tel: (02) 8751-1185. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 9pm.
■ Until Feb. 17
Photo Courtesy of udnFunLife
Free Art Space presents Channel, film and the machine (渠道、膠卷與機器), a solo exhibition by young Taiwanese artist Wei Po-jen (魏柏任). Wei is currently a graduate student at Taipei National University of the Arts who works between performance, video, installation, sculpture and drawing. Wei examines family and personal relationships, as well as memory. “I vaguely remember that there used to be a family video tape that recorded… significant moments in my life. Those yearning memories came back to me when I moved up north. [The] people, incidents and places that once existed were exposed again after the passing six to seven years,” writes the artist. The tape, as an incubator of his memories, has inspired him to create a long winding metal slope that traverses through three interconnected sections of the gallery space. Accompanying the installation is a series of photographs depicting a gigantic tin factory. The pictures of piled-up furniture, metal equipment and products indicate a familiar environment where his mother worked.
■ Free Art Space (福利社), B1, 82, Xinsheng N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市新生北路三段 82 號 B1), tel: (02) 2585-7600, Open Mondays to Fridays from 11am to 5pm, and Saturdays from 1:30pm to 9pm
■ Until Feb. 2
Photo Courtesy of White Stone Gallery
A fan of pop art? Andy Warhol Pop Art offers a broad survey of the iconic artist, director and producer at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. The show features over 100 lithographs, silkscreen prints and album cover designs by the artist. Warhol is arguably one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, known for his controversial explorations that challenged the boundaries between art, popular culture and advertising. His signature works include the silkscreen painting series of readily found objects and icons of mainstream culture including Campbell’s soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles, dollar bills and famous celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Muhammad Ali. Speaking of his reasons for painting soup cans, Warhol once said, “I wanted to paint nothing. I was looking for something that was the essence of nothing, and that [Campbell’s soup cans] was it.” The exhibition not only includes a selection of prints from this series, it also features self-portraits of the artist as well as design work for popular magazines and American rock band Velvet Underground.
■ Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (中正紀念堂) 21, Zhongshan S Rd, Taipei City (台北市中山路21號), tel: (02) 2343 1100. Open Mondays to Fridays from 10am to 6pm, weekends from 9am to 6pm
■ Until April 14
Growing up in a rural, religious community in western Canada, Kyle McCarthy loved hockey, but once he came out at 19, he quit, convinced being openly gay and an active player was untenable. So the 32-year-old says he is “very surprised” by the runaway success of Heated Rivalry, a Canadian-made series about the romance between two closeted gay players in a sport that has historically made gay men feel unwelcome. Ben Baby, the 43-year-old commissioner of the Toronto Gay Hockey Association (TGHA), calls the success of the show — which has catapulted its young lead actors to stardom -- “shocking,” and says
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