Hua Chien-chiang’s (華建強) colorful gouache paintings are currently on display at Taipei’s Aki Gallery, in the exhibition Painting Becoming (從繪畫開始). Hua is known for infusing elements of modern Taiwanese life into landscapes derived from traditional Chinese painting in a way that’s both humorous and sarcastic. For instance, men in swimming caps snorkel in murky waters set against a backdrop of what looks like limestone mountains. In another, a young man wearing a sanitary mask floats though a picturesque background of dramatic, grayish black mountains and meandering rivers. Silly as they are, Hua’s artwork reminds us of the importance of taking care of the environment.
■ Aki Gallery (也趣藝廊), 141 Minzu W Rd, Taipei City (台北市民族西路141號), tel: (02) 2599-1171. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from noon to 6:30pm
■ Until June 26
Photo courtesy of In River Gallery
New York-based sculptor Shida Kuo(郭旭達) currently has a solo exhibition, Shida Kuo: Shifting Lines and Evolving Forms (郭旭達:游移的線與衍化中的形), at Taipei’s Eslite Gallery, which includes an exhaustive collection of paintings and sculptures that explore line, form and space. It’s intriguing to see the two-dimensional paintings translated into three-dimensional works. Kuo’s art has an alluring simplicity, and his sculptures in particular look like lamps and doorknobs but at the same time, they also bear some resemblance to ancient tools.
■ Eslite Gallery (誠品畫廊), 5F, 11 Songgao Rd, Taipei City (台北市松高路11號5樓), tel: (02) 8789-3388. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Until July 10
Photo courtesy of Aki Gallery
Project Fulfill Art Space has never shied away from installation art, though the gallery is upping the ante this time around by featuring some sound art. Circus Without Circus (沒有馬戲的馬戲團) by Japanese artist Yuko Mohri is inspired by John Cage’s 1967 “musical score” Musicircus, in which he brought together several performers (including a pianist, vocalist and dancer) and had them perform simultaneously. Though it seemed well-orchestrated, the performance was un-rehearsed. Mohri builds on this idea by arranging percussion instruments, sound devices and everyday objects like aluminum cans and lamps throughout the gallery in a way that is discordant yet harmonious.
■ 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 July 17
Photo courtesy of Bluerider Art
Bluerider Art is currently featuring I Want, a joint exhibition featuring American artists Jonathan Rosen and Tom Smith. The title comes from Rosen’s series of collages I Want. Rosen, who used to work in advertising, collected concert stubs, baseball cards and business cards and made them into collages. The titles of his artwork all begin with “I Want…” I Want to Escape, for example, or I Want Attention. Through his collages, Rosen skillfully criticizes the nature of the advertising industry, in particular, how it’s meant to brainwash consumers into thinking that they want certain things to the point where they can’t think for themselves about what it is that they really want. Also on display are Smith’s hypnotic, neon paintings. Smith, who occasionally dabbles in sculpture and video art, infuses three-dimensional elements into his paintings, which also have a collage-like quality. Viewers are easily lulled into his crazy kaleidoscope of colors.
■ Bluerider Art (藍騎士藝術空間), 9F, 25-1, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段25-1號9樓), tel: (02) 2752-2238. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 9am to 6pm
■ Until July 23
Photo courtesy of Aura Gallery
Immensity, Intimacy (書齋與嬰兒房) is a group exhibition by Chinese and Japanese artists at Taipei’s Aura Gallery featuring artworks that are, well, immense in size but also very intimate in nature. Included in the lineup is late Japanese photographer Ueda Shoji, who was known to overlay realist and surrealist elements in his black-and-white photography. His later works were taken in color, though they are equally haunting. The exhibition also includes works by Chinese landscape calligrapher Li Tao (李濤) and Wang Mengsha’s (王濛莎) colorful ink paintings of dainty women dressed in traditional qipaos set against backdrops of rows of flower petals, exotic birds and roaming cats.
■ Aura Gallery Taipei (亦安畫廊台北), 313, Dunhua N Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段313號); tel: (02) 2752-7002. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 12pm to 7pm
■ Until July 23
Photo courtesy of Eslite Gallery
Liu Hsin-yi’s (劉信義) celestial-like paintings of skeletal people intertwined with corpses are on display at Taipei’s In River Gallery starting tomorrow, in the solo exhibition Seeking in the Shimmer (幽光尋覓). Liu paints with silver and gold ink on silk (a very tricky thing to do as silk is not the friendliest of mediums to work on). The result is both magical and eerie. His work, which depicts scenes that traverse life and death, is essentially an exploration of human nature — the morbid and enlightening aspects of it.
■ In River Gallery (穎川畫廊), 2F, 45, Renai Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路一段45號2樓), tel: (02) 2357-9900. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 8pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until July 27
The arrival of a Typhoon Gaemi last week coincided with the publication of a piece at Yale Climate Connection on the upcoming bill for coastal defenses in the US: US$400 billion by 2040. Last week’s column noted how Taiwan is desperately short of construction workers. I doubt “sea wall and dike construction workers” are on the radar of most readers, but they should be. Indeed, the extensive overbuilding of residential housing has crowded out construction workers needed elsewhere, one of the many ways the housing bubble is eating Taiwan. FLOODING For example, a September 2022 piece in Frontiers in Environmental Science, a
Last Sunday’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) national congress was the most anticipated in years, and produced some drama and surprises. As expected, party chair President William Lai (賴清德), his New Tide (新潮流系統, usually abbreviated to 新系) faction and his allied “trust in Lai” (信賴) coalition of factions won majorities and control of the party, but New Tide did not do as well as expected due to an unexpected defection (two previous columns — “The powerful political force that vanished from the English press,” April 23, 2024 and “Introducing the powerful DPP factions,” April 27, 2024 — provide indepth introductions
International students who cannot speak “basic English” are walking away from Australian universities with prestigious degrees, academics say, a situation one described as “mind-blowing.” More than a dozen academics and students said the universities’ financial reliance on foreign students over many years had hollowed out academic integrity and threatened the international credibility of the sector. Many said the rise of artificial intelligence was accelerating the crisis to the point where the only way to fail a course would be to hand nothing in, unless universities came up with a coherent institutional response. ’MIND BLOWING’ A tutor in an arts subject at a leading sandstone
Stepping inside Waley Art (水谷藝術) in Taipei’s historic Wanhua District (萬華區) one leaves the motorcycle growl and air-conditioner purr of the street and enters a very different sonic realm. Speakers hiss, machines whir and objects chime from all five floors of the shophouse-turned- contemporary art gallery (including the basement). “It’s a bit of a metaphor, the stacking of gallery floors is like the layering of sounds,” observes Australian conceptual artist Samuel Beilby, whose audio installation HZ & Machinic Paragenesis occupies the ground floor of the gallery space. He’s not wrong. Put ‘em in a Box (我們把它都裝在一個盒子裡), which runs until Aug. 18, invites