American Post-Minimalism artist and steel sculptor, Richard Serra has had 40 years of experience. His works were undertaken the influence of Abstract Sculpture and Minimalism in conjunction with his personal literature background. After proposed Verb List in 1967, Serra continually published various stages of work, such as Splash, Prop, Elevate, and Arc. Serra was the pioneer of contemporary sculpture as he interfered art with social sites for critical thinking. During the development of Post-Minimalism, Serra created a series of works based on the perception of human body. His early years were influenced by ontology, combining linguistic and philosophical thinking. Serra used steel in his works, integrating form structures to replace traditional hand-made labor work and to remove referential themes. In his later years, Serra returned to the essence of his works to focus on the exploration of time and space.
This article focuses on "site" to pinpoint the visual perception in Serra's works by using three topics. There are: 1) expansion of site awareness, 2) establishment of visual perception, and 3) spirit of spatial orientation. Serra explored the interrelation between space and time created through his works in particular sites by examining urban and rural atmospheres, the contract between organic ground change and dull industrial materials, and indoor and outdoor spaces. Serra created his works by integrated iron and steel materials; he aimed to highlight the existence of body in the space and the spirit associated with the particular site.
Keywords
site, visual perception, mapping, time, spatial orientation
In the Dong-Hun Sung and Po-Chun Liu duo exhibition (entitled "Metallic Heroes and Demythification") held in May 2011 at the Juming Museum, two Asian sculptors engage each other in a clash-cumdialogue. They do so, coincidentally, with steel sculptures. Steel as a sculptural material dates back more a hundred years to the beginning of the 20th century. Having different plastic vocabularies between themselves, the two Asian artists each respond to the qualities and complex history of this particular medium. Dong-Hun Sung chooses to bypass the issues unfurled by steel throughout the history of modern sculpture, and directs steel on the onset towards a narrative, symbolic or allegorical purpose. Exercising heterogeneous assimilation, Sung combines heterogeneous materials (such as found objects and industrial refuse) into humorous, bizarre and polysemic hybrids of different cultural components, and chooses Don Quixote as a spiritual icon. Po-Chun Liu, on the other hand, thinks deeply about the properties of steel as a medium, as well as the questions it has been raising throughout the history of modern art, so as to deliberately distance himself from sculpture, as it were. He carries on the post-Picasso subversion of the nature of sculptures, and delves into the dialectics between painting and sculpture to resolve the conflict between planar and 3D space. With a deceptively simple approach, Liu presents a complex enfoldment of many of modern sculpture's basic questions, including those about structure, space, light, sound, kinetic energy, site and reproduction. His choice of subject (Vajra) is a symbol for the pandemonium of the Information Age. In post-industrial society and the so-called New Media Generation, Dong-Hun Sung's and Po-Chun Liu's steel sculptures meet on the brink of modernism's collapse. The result is an attempt to open up new horizons in the 21st century for this shared medium.
The idea of "hybrid" comes into contemporary fine arts in a very early stage. In ancient mythology, it's often to see hybrids between human and creature, or between beings. These legends or anecdotes are a kind of worship that people at that time had toward the unusual phenomenon, in terms of interpreting as supernatural.
Contemporary artist, Ping-Cheng Liang (1958-), who is famous by using the techniques such as "quality-lightening", simulative abstraction, simulative practice, and complex materials in his creations, has stands out by the concept of "hybrid" and "simulative beings" wrapped up in his pieces. This article is mainly focused on Liang's dynamic creating outcome. By discussing his techniques in presenting the art craft between organic and inorganic in a way of supernatural deific attaché, and applying complex material in transcending the lines between convention and avant-garde, we can explore the infinite possibilities for sculpture. His finesse of prototypical carving shows the fluid texture in his works, which has regained the concretion of the stain-less steel artistry. Liang's works have deconstructed the dichotomy of simulation vs. reality; supernatural vs. natural; mythology vs. history, and thus summoned the rawest cosmology in human being. By relating oneself to all the beings in the world, we can discover the infinite possibilities in life as well as art.
Return to the essence of creation of art, has been always my central idea. Its highest realm should be not bounded by form and just be made naturally. It must be achieved by the creator's rich life, the sublimation of his spiritual concentration, and also the proficient performance in technique and endowment. Although the highest creation realm should not be bounded by the form as I had said, however, in the process of creation, still fulfill the form, but not indulge in the form. As the Tao Te Ching has been carried: "The Law often inactive, but is all." The nature things grow up from each their natural spontaneity. It seems like they accomplish nothing, but actually they comply their form by the natural development. It is so not artificial, so not affectedly to present the works. That is precisely my portrayal of my created mind and practical life. The three-dimensional form exists in the substantive space. That kind of space is not only the space inhabits the physique work. When we make the dialog between the feeling in visual and the aesthetics in work, that space will have the inexhaustible possibility. As I treat as entrusts the sense of reality and the shape into my work itself, the spatial and time namely existence closely. My creation idea of space and time as I mention above, is different with the scientific realism and the philosophical debates. It is one kind of subjective intuition comprehension, one kind of metaphysical state of mind.
Keywords
space and time, nature, intuitive comprehension, threedimensional form
