Drawing from its collection of over 11,000 works, the National Center for Photography and Images’ (國家攝影文化中心) inaugural domestic exhibit, Hold the Mirror up to His Gaze (舉起鏡子迎上他的凝視), presents a valuable record of Taiwan’s photographic history from 1869 to 1949. It includes personal albums as well as pieces scanned from negatives acquired from now-shuttered photo studios. The subject matter shifts from the lens of visiting Europeans to Japanese colonizers to Taiwanese pioneers like Deng Nan-guang (鄧南光) and Chang Tsai (張才).
Such an overview is fitting for the center’s grand debut, but organizers are eager to point out that their collection is more than just about documentation.
Set within the same exhibition space is an accompanying exhibition curated by David Campany, who serves as the managing director of programs at the International Center of Photography in New York. A Handful of Dust: From the Cosmic to the Domestic is a conceptual show exploring various allegories represented by dust at various scales through the visual arts. The two radically different displays create a sharp contrast that somehow works.
Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei Times
The exhibitions are housed in a tastefully refurbished 84-year-old Japanese colonial-era office building that combines Asian and European architectural elements.
Preview tours are all booked up, but it will open to the public at no cost on April 20.
Fu Yuan-cheng (傅遠政), who heads the center, says after working closely with experts to establish the scope of the rescue efforts for Hold the Mirror up to His Gaze, they began collecting works that were scattered across Taiwan and the world. Nine experts participated in the research for the domestic show, including Magnum photographer Chang Chien-chi (張乾琦), whose work is also on display.
Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei Times
Many of the original prints have been lost to time and were stored in collections as film negatives or glass plates, which the museum was able to scan and reprint. While Deng left behind a limited number of works after he died in 1971, his family had carefully preserved his film for over 40 years. The value of these go beyond reproduction, Fu says.
“Through his film rolls, we can get a glimpse of how [Deng] framed his shots, or how he made his selections,” he says.
A few of these film albums are on view, organized chronologically and easily navigable with thought-provoking text to place the pieces in historical context.
Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei Times
The only complaint is that the description labels are placed too low, making the viewer have to bend down to read the text — and there are a lot of captions to read.
Labeling is also an issue with A Handful of Dust as all of the entries are grouped into one panel in the room, making the viewer have to run back and forth to match the piece to the text.
Inspired by Dust Breeding, a photograph by surrealist visual artist Man Ray showing dust gathering on a work by Marcel Duchamp, Campany’s selections run the gamut from the light-hearted and artistic to social issues and mass destruction. Who knew dust could generate such discussion and imagination?
Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei Times
The building housing the exhibition has been altered significantly over its life, and it’s evident that a great deal of work was put into restoring it. The full story of the building’s history and restoration can be found in the single-room permanent display, Trans-Communication (跨交通).
The first floor features a coffee and pastry shop with a market-style gift store, but the real gem is the cozy photography library hidden in the back where one can just kick back and pore through the work of the greats.
All in all, it’s an excellent show that hopefully provides inspiration in putting together future domestic exhibitions.
Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei Times
Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei Times
Photo: Han Cheung, Taipei Times
The Taipei Times last week reported that the rising share of seniors in the population is reshaping the nation’s housing markets. According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, about 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident. H&B Realty chief researcher Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨), quoted in the article, said that there is rising demand for elderly-friendly housing, including units with elevators, barrier-free layouts and proximity to healthcare services. Hsu and others cited in the article highlighted the changing family residential dynamics, as children no longer live with parents,
Oct 20 to Oct 26 After a day of fighting, the Japanese Army’s Second Division was resting when a curious delegation of two Scotsmen and 19 Taiwanese approached their camp. It was Oct. 20, 1895, and the troops had reached Taiye Village (太爺庄) in today’s Hunei District (湖內), Kaohsiung, just 10km away from their final target of Tainan. Led by Presbyterian missionaries Thomas Barclay and Duncan Ferguson, the group informed the Japanese that resistance leader Liu Yung-fu (劉永福) had fled to China the previous night, leaving his Black Flag Army fighters behind and the city in chaos. On behalf of the
I was 10 when I read an article in the local paper about the Air Guitar World Championships, which take place every year in my home town of Oulu, Finland. My parents had helped out at the very first contest back in 1996 — my mum gave out fliers, my dad sorted the music. Since then, national championships have been held all across the world, with the winners assembling in Oulu every summer. At the time, I asked my parents if I could compete. At first they were hesitant; the event was in a bar, and there would be a lot
Smart speakers are a great parenting crutch, whether it be for setting a timer (kids seem to be weirdly obedient to them) or asking Alexa for homework help when the kids put you on the spot. But reader Katie Matthews has hacked the parenting matrix. “I used to have to nag repeatedly to get the kids out of the house,” she says. “Now our Google speaker announces a five-minute warning before we need to leave. They know they have to do their last bits of faffing when they hear that warning. Then the speaker announces, ‘Shoes on, let’s go!’ when
RSS