Day 7
After the long day yesterday, could you blame me for waking up a tad later than usual? I thought not.
Well, I decided after three days from mountains and natural beauty, it was about time to appreciate man-made art. To the 台北市立美術館 (Taipei Fine Arts Museum) I went! The little walk over to the museum from the station was quite enjoyable as today was not too sunny and not too cloudy and the air felt so refreshing! It took me a while to convince myself that I was here to see the museum. After a few wonderful breaths, I eventually continued on over.
Although I would definitely rank the Fine Arts Museum as one of the nicest places I’ve been to, I encourage you to check out if you ever visit to gauge how you like yourself. Most of all, I was impressed by their selection of artists for the Taiwan Biennial 2014. So I will just give a short run-down of three of my favorite artists from the visit.
Before I begin, I will give a little background. The theme of the biennial was “The Great Acceleration: Art in the Anthropocene”. The past 60 years of human history was become deeply intertwined with various technology and the environment and the materials that play roles in both realms. How is the unspoken social contract evolving and how are we fostering these links? These questions were examined through the lens of art.
Abu-Bakarr Mansaray, a Sierra-Leone born artist, went from science to art. How? Engineering really moved him to do creative things with simple materials. In turn, the world was presented with blueprints of future technology that would change daily life. Aspects of the civil wars in his home country seem to have influenced the dark motifs of his work. I personally was attracted to his work because they came off as the recovered work of a mad scientist plotting his world take over. However, I grew furthered attracted at the detail put into the descriptions of the various parts of the evil technology. Clearly, the scientist had not yet left the building.
If your guessed Charles Avery was a Londoner, you would be quite right. He has been working on imaginary island since 2004 and his pieces since then have been providing greater detail on life there. As weird as the imagination can get, Avery does a great job in making it pretty tangible in our dimension. From the inhabitants to the flora to the architecture, his world is slowly becoming visible. In the photo below are eels, whose meat are a bastion for the island’s economy.
Ching-Hou Chou, a Taipei-based artist and photographer, has worked often with the media but also has had interests in telling a narrative. Recently, Chou has wanted to elaborate the restraints of our everyday lives through her photography. As Billy Corgan noted in a “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”, despite all our rage, we are still just rats in a cage. Through her Zoo collection, Chou shows us within our cages. It kind of stings.
Well that was a great museum visit but I wanted to see a little bit more of Taipei before meeting up with Jay. I hit up 國立國父紀念館 (Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall), the architectural tribute to debatably the philosophical inspiration behind the Chinese Revolution. It’s kind of interesting how much the ROC reflects on their Chinese identity over their Taiwanese one through their public places but I won’t get to deep into the politics. The site is pretty nice and walking around can get you a pretty nice view of the city around you.
So after meeting Jay and his friend, we went over to 松山文創園區 (Songshan Designer Plaza), a hub of the hipster movement in my mind. The place was definitely designed with a contemporary frame in mind but the department store nature of it just reminded me that I was most definitely still poor. Alas, the act of window shopping is still wonderful.
Inside, we went to get dinner at the final piece of the three most popular restaurant chains in Taiwan, 高記 (카오치, Kao Chi). From Jay, I learned the themes and centerpieces of the three chains. Xinye, the first of the three I visited, offered a real taste of Taiwan by offering most of the local dishes found in the nation. Din Tai Fung can be considered the king of xiaolongbao (totally explaining the fact that they had a rule sheet for how to eat the dumplings when in the restaurant). In contrast to those two, Kao Chi is often considered the cheapest and a local favorite. Although xiaolongbao can be found here for cheaper, the real draw is to get the tastes of Shanghai without traveling too far and boy, am I glad that’s the case. We got this wonderful chicken and spinach-based dishes, my favorite part of the meals was having the incredibly juicy 芋頭 (타로, taro). I never had taro outside of its bubble tea form but boy, am I believer now.
The rest of our night as spent checking out rich people shop, going to a metallurgy shop, having some original bubble tea at 春水堂 (Chun Shui Tang), and conversing about things ranging from hanja and Taiwanese youth. I am really glad to have met Jay and learn so much from someone my own age!
