New York-based artist Joshua Balgos’ video Whatever it Takes explores an individual’s obsession with the perfect body, the ideal job and the relationship that everyone dreams of.
■ Taipei National University of Arts — Kuandu Museum of Arts (台北藝術大學關渡美術館), 1, Xueyuan Rd, Beitou Dist, Taipei City (台北市北投區學園路1號). Open Tuesdays through Sundays from 10am to 5pm. Tel: (02) 2896-1000 X2432
■ Until Sept. 20
Young Hong-guo’s (楊紅國) fantastical pastel-colored oil paintings depict a surreal and mechanized world in The Ultra-Dimensional Adventures of Pets (寵物們之超時空冒險). The paintings use animal imagery to personify and critique contemporary society.
■ Dynasty Art Gallery (朝代藝術), 41, Leli Rd, Taipei City (台北市樂利路41號). For a viewing call (02) 2377-0838
■ Until Aug. 15
Look Toward the Other Side — Song of Asian Foreign Brides in Taiwan III (望向彼方—亞洲新娘之歌(三)) is the third part of Hou Shur-tzy’s (侯淑姿) series that explores through photography the lives of female foreign nationals who marry Taiwanese men.
■ Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館), 1 Xueyuan Rd, Taipei City (台北市學園路1號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm. Tel: (02) 2896-1000
■ Until Sept. 20
Wild Aspirations — The Yellow Sheep River Project (野想-黃羊川計畫) is an exhibition of picture books created by Chou Ching-hui (周慶輝) that merge photography and painting and examine the relationship between children and the physical landscape in which they live.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), 181, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市中山北路三段181號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:30am to 5:30pm, open until 8:30pm on Saturdays. Tel: (02) 2595-7656
■ Until Aug. 30
Li Show-ming (黎少明) and Yin Yu (尹愚) combine Chinese knotting with jade artifacts from their personal collections to create new works of art. Old Jades, New Inventions: An Exhibition of Ming and Yu’s Creation (古玉新飾:明 & 愚創作展) brings together 170 of these intriguing sculptures that were created over the past decade.
■ National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館), 49 Nanhai Rd, Taipei City (台北市南海路49號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Tel: (02) 2361-0270
■ Until Aug. 30
Taiwanese artists Huang Tzu-chin (黃子欽) and Chiang Chi-yang (江佶洋) use photography, video and installation art in Old, Yes! (老.不休) to map the spatial and temporal history of Taipei’s Datong District (大同區). The exhibit attempts to capture the sights, sounds and scents of one of Taipei’s oldest areas.
■ Museum of Contemporary
Art, Taipei (MOCA, Taipei), 39 Changan W Rd, Taipei City (台北市長安西路39號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Tel: (02) 2552-3721. On the Net:
www.mocataipei.org.tw
■ Until Aug. 23
Land, Life & Love (大地、生命與愛戀) is a solo exhibit by Taiwanese artist Hwang Buh-ching (黃步青) and consists of his early oil paintings that explore and are intimately bound up with Taiwan’s natural environment.
■ Jin-Zhi Gallery (金枝藝術), 41-3 Sinfu Village, Yuanli Township, Miaoli County (苗栗縣苑裡鎮新復里41-3號). Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 6pm. For a viewing call (03) 786-4858
■ Until Sept. 20
My friends and I have been enjoying the last two weeks of revelation after revelation of the financial and legal shenanigans of Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head and recent presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). Every day brings fresh news — allegations that a building had purchased with party subsidies but listed in Ko’s name, allegations of downloading party subsidy funds into his personal accounts. Ko’s call last December for the regulations for the government’s special budgets to be amended to enforce fiscal discipline, and his September unveiling of his party’s anti-corruption plan, have now taken on a certain delightful irony.
President William Lai’s (賴清德) vision for Taiwan to become an “AI island” has three conditions: constructing advanced data centers, ensuring a stable and green energy supply, and cultivating AI talent. However, the energy issue supply is the greatest challenge. To clarify, let’s reframe the problem in terms of the Olympics. Given Taiwan’s OEM (original equipment manufacturer) roles in the technology sector, Taiwan is not an athlete in the AI Olympics, or even a trainer, but rather a training ground for global AI athletes (AI companies). In other words, Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem provides world-class training facilities and equipment that have already attracted
The number of scandals and setbacks hitting the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in such quick and daily succession in the last few weeks is unprecedented, at least in the countries whose politics I am familiar with. The local media is covering this train wreck on an almost hourly basis, which in the latest news saw party chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) detained by prosecutors on Friday and released without bail yesterday. The number of links collected to produce these detailed columns may reach 400 by the time this hits the streets. To get up to speed, two columns have been written: “Donovan’s
During her final years of high school, Chinese teenager Xu Yunting found an unusual way to make some pocket money: transforming herself into male video game characters and taking their female devotees on dates. The trend, called “cos commissioning,” has gained traction in China recently, with social media posts garnering millions of views as an increasing number of young women use their purchasing power to engineer a meeting with their dream man in real life. One early morning in Shanghai last month, Xu carefully inserted contacts to enlarge her irises and adjusted a tangerine wig to transform into “Jesse,” a character from