Patrick Zachmann is an award-winning French photographer who hasdedicated himself to over the past four decades to creating documentary projects, books and video films that examine themes of memory, identity and immigration. Zachmann is a member of Magnum, a prestigious international cooperative of photojournalists established after the World War II. “I became a photographer because I have no memory,” Zachmann says. “Photography allows me to reconstruct the family albums I never had, the missing images becoming the engine of my research.” A solo exhibition of his work, SO LONG, CHINA (馬格蘭紀實攝影大師 — Patrick Zachmann 特展), is currently on view at the newly-opened Leica Store in Taipei. Featuring a selection of photographs taken in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the show offers a subjective angle of these regions from a foreigner’s point of view and observations of changes in daily life over the last 40 years. Exhibition highlights include Taiwan, Taipei. 1987, a portrait of Taiwanese policemen during a celebration organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT); Suzhou, 1995 is a cinematic shot of film star Gong Li (鞏俐) and Leslie Cheung (張國榮) during a film scene of Temptress Moon (風月) directed by Chen Kai-ge (陳凱歌).
■ House of Leica, Taipei Qingtian (萊卡之家), 3, Ln 6, Qingtian Rd, Taipei City (台北市青田街六巷3號), tel: (02) 2391-2593. Open daily from 11am to 7pm
■ Until May 5
Photo Courtesy of Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei
Chen Chien-pei (陳建北) is a Taiwanese artist who works between photography, video and installation. He was one of the participating artists of the Venice Biennial Taiwan Pavilion in 1997; he taught studio arts at the Tainan National University of Arts until retiring in 2014. Chen’s current solo exhibition, Midwife Overture (助產序曲), at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA, Taipei), is a culmination of works from his 2016 residency in Tainan. The show deals with Tainan’s history of midwives and childbirth, from the Qing Dynasty to the present. The museum writes that during the 1950s and 1960s, most women didn’t give birth in a hospital or clinic because they were too expensive. Instead, they used midwifes. Based on research, interviews and personal memories of his family’s past, the show features artifacts, documents and videos collected by the artist, including a birthing chair, a map of old Tainan that marks the location of a midwive’s house, and personal letters submitted by open call. The letters “bear heartfelt messages dedicated to their significant other on pregnancy, motherhood, and nurturing, offering a reassessment on family and intimacy in modern society,” writes the museum.
■ 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) 2559-6615. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until March 24
Photo Courtesy of Leica Store Taipei
Of a Feather Flocking Together: Birds, Flowers, and Fruit in Melodic Harmony (來禽圖—翎毛與花果的和諧奏鳴) is a thematic exhibition of paintings about birds at the National Palace Museum. The works range over a broad period of time, from the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as works from the modern era. Appreciation of birds has been a popular leisure activity among the literati and such persistent affection is demonstrated by the museum’s vast collection of 2,000 bird paintings. The collection shows a wide span of styles, formats and compositions of birds together with fruit and flowers. Many paintings show a particular attention to the details of bird feathers, including Flycatcher and Loquats (枇杷綬帶), a Song Dynasty painting of a beautiful, long-tailed Asian paradise flycatcher perched on a branch of a loquat tree. The work is attributed to Xu Chongsi (徐崇嗣), a master painter of a style called “boneless painting,” which uses washes of color and avoids outlined contours. Another Song Dynasty master painter Cui Bai (崔白) also favored bird and flower subjects; Peacocks and the Loquat Tree (華枇杷孔雀) is a picture of a male peacock in an elaborate garden scenery of loquat trees, flowers and garden rocks. The show also includes modern photographs of birds that offer a comparison of how artists explore visual languages through different mediums and times.
■ 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 April 28
Photo Courtesy of National Palace Museum
On the Verge of Fiction (虛寫邊界) is a group exhibition of young and emerging artists from Japan and Taiwan that aims to promote cultural exchange and discussions concerning historical memory. Working between fact and fiction, participating artists are invited to respond to themes of social geography, political and cultural history and contemporary society. Curator Hayato Fujioka bases his definition of fiction on Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. “Harari describes [fiction] as an imagined reality and lying... it is expressed in mythology and religion and allows for large numbers of people to cooperate,” writes Fujioka. The show seeks to “interrogate the fictionality in our living world” and reconsider the reality we live in today. Exhibition highlights include Chen Fei-hao’s (陳飛豪) Love Suicide at Snow Melting Train: New Shikoku Pilgrimage in Taipei (心中雪解車：台北新四國八十八所靈場), a single channel video and historical documentation about the death of a prostitute in Taipei during Japanese colonial rule. Chen Ting-chun’s (陳亭君) The Border Room (邊境之屋) is a oil painting that depicts a theatrical setting created through deconstructing pictures, collaging and appropriation. Kenta Kawagoe’s Drapes 7 is sculptural piece created by layers of inkjet print mounted on a paper box.
■ 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 April 7
Photo Courtesy of Mangasick
Usamaru Furuya is a Tokyo-born manga artist known for his poignant drawing style and absurdist narratives. With a background in oil painting, sculpture and butoh dance, Furuya initially pursued a career in fine arts but quickly gained recognition in the cartoon industry after graduating from college. His seminal manga series, Litchi Hikai Club, is an adaptation of an 80’s Japanese puppet production that deeply influenced the artist in his youth. The manga series substantially adds to the original story and tells a horrific tale of a middle school boys club based in an abandoned industrial factory. While the club’s mission is to create an artificial intelligence for the purpose of abducting beautiful girls, the story explores questions of beauty, adulthood and the moral boundaries of desires. In celebration of the newly published Chinese edition, Mangasick is hosting a solo exhibition, Litchi Hikai Club, by the artist. The show includes a selection of original drawings from the manga series as well as other works. Copies of the publication are available for purchase at the gallery.
■ 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. Opens Thursdays to Tuesdays from 2pm to 10pm
■ Until March 4
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
The 2018 nine-in-one local elections were a wild ride that no one saw coming. Entering that year, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was demoralized and in disarray — and fearing an existential crisis. By the end of the year, the party was riding high and swept most of the country in a landslide, including toppling the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in their Kaohsiung stronghold. Could something like that happen again on the DPP side in this year’s nine-in-one elections? The short answer is not exactly; the conditions were very specific. However, it does illustrate how swiftly every assumption early in an
Inside an ordinary-looking townhouse on a narrow road in central Kaohsiung, Tsai A-li (蔡阿李) raised her three children alone for 15 years. As far as the children knew, their father was away working in the US. They were kept in the dark for as long as possible by their mother, for the truth was perhaps too sad and unjust for their young minds to bear. The family home of White Terror victim Ko Chi-hua (柯旗化) is now open to the public. Admission is free and it is just a short walk from the Kaohsiung train station. Walk two blocks south along Jhongshan
Francis William White, an Englishman who late in the 1860s served as Commissioner of the Imperial Customs Service in Tainan, published the tale of a jaunt he took one winter in 1868: A visit to the interior of south Formosa (1870). White’s journey took him into the mountains, where he mused on the difficult terrain and the ease with which his little group could be ambushed in the crags and dense vegetation. At one point he stays at the house of a local near a stream on the border of indigenous territory: “Their matchlocks, which were kept in excellent order,
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