Today, Saturday. A searing hot afternoon, and we went off to the Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art. There was an exhibition on, called City Life, with the low entrance fee that is usual in this country, a pleasant change from London museums and galleries. It turned out to be one of the best contemporary art shows I’ve seen recently, or at least one that I enjoyed most. It was mostly films – not a genre I typically enjoy, though come to think of it, the last time I enjoyed it was also in this country. One film struck me as a very good public health message: it was closeup of a young woman’s face, a woman wearing a surgical mask. She spat something out, and thick red fluid splattered inside the mask, and with each spit, more red until the mask was wet and fraying on her face. Very effective in this time of coronavirus. Another was a series of black and white photos, in three projections side by side in a darkened room. All the photos were of Taiwan, of monumental statues rising above ordinary Taiwanese houses . One of the statues I recognised, it’s an image of Matsu over a raised freeway quite near our flat. There was a sort of order to them, though I couldn’t pin it down, but it certainly seemed to make sense in viewing it.
Another was a dark room with an elaborate little diorama, gold shining, of an abandoned temple in the woods. Then a film came on, a stop motion film with singing mice made up of twisted bits of junk seemingly in the same forest.
Another was inside a thick curtained room, we went in expecting to find another film and instead seeing roughly made stuffed toys, like socks filled with wool, contorted limbs missing animals and animals missing limbs.
In a small, hidden corner by a staircase, a little squashed rat made of junk.
After this we continued on the GF’s quest for ice cream, this time going to the foreigners’ enclave of Tianmu for Argentinian gelato which had taken a place on a list of the world’s best ice creams. The walk was lovely, along a narrow, clear green-lined river with hills ahead, better than the ice cream itself which was much to sweet, and serve me right for even looking at such a stupid kind of list.