Tina Keng Gallery presents Wanderers of the Abyssal Darkness II: Somber Seas (黯黑的放浪者II：幽遊之域), a solo exhibition by Yang Mao-lin (楊茂林). Yang began creating work in the post-Martial Law era, working in painting, computer animation, installation and sculpture to examine how colonialism shapes nationalism and culture. The show marks Yang’s return to the practice of painting after an extended period of time focusing on sculpture. He has represented Taiwan twice at the Venice Biennial, showing works that express original commentary on Taiwan with playfulness and humor. Yang says Taiwan is a hybrid culture that has been under the long-term influence of Japan and the US. The metaphor of the sea is prominent in his solo exhibition of new paintings, which depict dramatic narratives of fish life amid finely articulated vegetation.
■ Tina Keng Gallery (耿畫廊), 15, Ln 548, Ruiguang Rd, Taipei City (台北市瑞光路548巷15號), tel: (02) 2659-0798. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 7pm
■ Until April 7
Photo Courtesy of Tina Keng Gallery
Huang Wei-hsuan (黃偉軒) works in theater design, sound design and video art. In his latest solo project featured in the multi-screen gallery of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Huang explores ideas of place and memory from the perspective of the subjective body. People rely on the sense of sight to orient and guide themselves through different spaces, but when a site no longer exists, is it possible experience it through alternative means? Huang’s project, The Dust and Light (和光同塵), utilizes photoscan (a technique that builds 3D models by way of digital photography) to recreate sites in virtual form that are soon to be dismantled. He then reassembles its spatial experience according to video footage of the space shot from a first person point of view. The result is a virtual terrain that is modeled after physical reality, and yet is also the starting point of a new reality, says the artist. Huang examines and memory traces associated with the modeled site. After the space is demolished, is it possible to experience the remains of its history with the aid of digital technology?
■ National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (國立台灣美術館), 2, Wuquan W Rd Sec 1, Taichung City (台中市五權西路一段2號), tel: (04) 2373-3552. Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 9am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm.
■ Until April 28
Photo Courtesy of Donna Art & Consulting
Sagaki Keita is a Tokyo-based artist who reinterprets famous Old Master paintings with distinctly original manga techniques. On first glance, his paintings resemble familiar images, such Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Hokusai’s The Great Wave Off Kanagawa and Sandro Boticelli’s The Birth of Venus. Upon closer inspection, however, his depictions are rendered with countless tiny, improvised cartoon characters. Sagaki says that “Western paintings offer depth, while my characters are flat. Even in many classical Japanese paintings, perspective is not used much.” On several occasions, the artist has described his practice as creating mandalas, a Buddhist drawing technique that is used to aid meditation. Mandalas are not only religious paintings made of countless details, “the purpose of such drawings is the reproduction of the unconscious self,” writes critic Chen Kuang-yi (陳貺怡) in a commentary on Keita’s work. A selection of his latest drawings is currently on view at Donna Art & Consulting. Entitled My Girl, the exhibition explores various representations of the female in art history. From Roy Lichtenstein’s The Melody Haunts My Reverie, Jean Ingre’s Odalisque to Edvard Munch’s Scream, Keita presents a panorama of Western art classics altered by his whimsical touch.
■ Donna Art & Consulting (多納藝術), 7F, 112 Keelung Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市基隆路二段112號7樓), tel: (02) 7746-7463. Open Mondays to Saturdays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until March 30
Photo Courtesy of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts
In 1998, Goino Tadashi, the honorary chairperson of the Utawa Society, donated 300 pieces of Japanese art to five institutions and universities in Taiwan. These works belonged to the style of Ukiyo-e, a 17th century Japanese art movement that literally translates to “floating road.” Ukiyo-e is a product of the Edo period, a time in which the then Japanese capital Edo enjoyed a thriving urban economy and stable political conditions. While a rising class of newly rich sought material goods to show off their social status, an influx of artists to the city cultivated a robust market for art. Ukiyo-e typically portrays narratives of female beauty, notable landscapes, dramatic characters and folk customs. The works were typically prints sold at affordable prices. Currently on view at the National Tsinghua University Museum is a selection of 40 Ukiyo-e paintings and prints donated to the National Museum of History. The Twilight Beauty by Utagawa Toyokuni III depicts a scene from The Tale of Genji, a Japanese literary classic about love affairs among the nobility. A Parade of Vassals in Kasumigaseki by Utagawa Hiroshige II is a horizontal print that shows an endless procession traversing through Tokyo’s historic government district.
■ National Tsinghua University Museum (國立清華大學文物館籌備處), 101, Guangfu Rd Sec 2, Hsinchu City (新竹市光復路二段101號), tel: (03) 574-2245. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 11am to 6pm
■ Until March 30
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Artist Village
Non-verbal Communication (非言語溝通) is the first iteration of exhibitions by Taipei Artist Village residents this year. The three artists featured in this show share an interest in communicating methods beyond words, interpreting environments, communities and social issues from different perspectives. Gabriele de Seta is an Italian artist based in Taipei who has a background in anthropology. His project, Listening/Accidents, explores Taipei through video and sound, with special attention to daily and unexpected voices that might seem unstructured but contain insights into a cultural context. Japanese artist Masayuki Harada’s video piece, Touch Us, examines Taipei’s migrant workers. The film captures the workers relaxing in their off-hours at the Taipei Main Station. According to the artist, documentation of physical expressions and social interactions communicate a non-verbal language that is telling of their social structure. Yunyo Ayo Shih’s (施昀佑) art publication, A Manual, How to Use Domestic Robot HK-ORCHID-35 in Hong Kong Region examines the future of Hong Kong’s domestic helpers. When labor is replaced by machines, will empathy disappear? Is equality possible?
■ Barry Room, Taipei Artist Village (台北國際藝術村百里廳), 7 Beiping E Rd, Taipei City (台北市北平東路7號), tel: (02) 3393-7377. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 9pm
■ Until March 17
Photo Courtesy of National Museum Of History
The breakwater stretches out to sea from the sprawling Kaohsiung port in southern Taiwan. Normally, it’s crowded with massive tankers ferrying liquefied natural gas from Qatar to be stored in the bulbous white tanks that dot the shoreline. These are not normal times, though, and not a single shipment from Qatar has docked at the Yongan terminal since early March after the Strait of Hormuz was shuttered. The suspension has provided a realistic preview of a potential Chinese blockade, a move that would throttle an economy anchored by the world’s most advanced and power-hungry semiconductor industry. It is a stark reminder of
May 11 to May 17 Traversing the southern slopes of the Yushan Range in 1931, Japanese naturalist Tadao Kano knew he was approaching the last swath of Taiwan still beyond colonial control. The “vast, unknown territory,” protected by the “fierce” Bunun headman Dahu Ali, was “filled with an utterly endless jungle that choked the mountains and valleys,” Kano wrote. He noted how the group had “refused to submit to the measures of our authorities and entrenched themselves deep in these mountains … living a free existence spent chasing deer in the morning and seeking serow in the evening,” even describing them as
As a different column was being written, the big news dropped that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) announced that negotiations within his caucus, with legislative speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT, party Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chair Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) had produced a compromise special military budget proposal. On Thursday morning, prior to meeting with Cheng over a lunch of beef noodles, Lu reiterated her support for a budget of NT$800 or NT$900 billion — but refused to comment after the meeting. Right after Fu’s
What government project has expropriated the most land in Taiwan? According to local media reports, it is the Taoyuan Aerotropolis, eating 2,500 hectares of land in its first phase, with more to come. Forty thousand people are expected to be displaced by the project. Naturally that enormous land grab is generating powerful pushback. Last week Chen Chien-ho (陳健和), a local resident of Jhuwei Borough (竹圍) in Taoyuan City’s Dayuan District (大園) filed a petition for constitutional review of the project after losing his case at the Taipei Administrative Court. The Administrative Court found in favor of nine other local landowners, but
RSS