The series of sculptures which Ju Ming based on the theme of 'returning to the living world' is forming a landscape of 'Living Aesthetics' embedded with unique quality of the East. Focusing on his life as an artist, with the root in the local complex as the starting point, the Taichi Series and the Living World Series are in fact connected with each other in nature: the Living World Series is the return of the Taichi Series, while the Taichi Series is the basis of the Living World Series. The Taichi Series is seemingly singular in nature but in fact is being represented in the form of 'plural number'; the Living World Series looks as if in a plural form yet it exists as a singularity. Consider the aspects of 'shape' and 'surface' in sculpture, though Ju Ming's sculptures have absorbed influences from modern sculpture of the West and made important exploration, the bigger achievement comes at Ju's unique 'art of playing with lines' in sculptures of various media. This is exactly what is 'most representative of the east' and distinguish his art from western sculptors.
Keywords
Living World Series, living world-ness, singularity and plurality, the art of using lines
Taoism puts great emphasis on leading a simple life as well as mediating to reach emptiness, tranquility and sitting in oblivion that are critical for understanding and experiencing the greatest state in the human lifetime in Taoism— forgetting about the self and the external world and becoming united with the heaven. This philosophy is somehow similar to what metal sculptors are pursuing, mainly refining the artistic conception during the design stage, dialectically and repeatedly chasing after purity both in forms and quality, and finally, creating an perfect artwork of self realization.
Taoism often views all changes in the world as constant inconstancy that flows perpetually. It is like seeing everything in front of us as a gigantic organic life community that is though complicated and in chaos but orderly, forming a distinct and natural principle of the cycle of life. If we draw a parallel between "tao", meaning the rule in Chinese, of harmonious coexisting of all creatures and the aesthetic value pursued by metal sculptors, then the practice of thinking calmly in Taoism is very similar to the artists' attempts of keeping a distance from the metal materials during the contemplation stage in order to attain a perfect and well-balanced result via exercising pure aesthetics and mature skills naturally. Lao-Chuang's aesthetic emphasis coincides perfectly well with the abstract form of contemporary metal sculpture, whereas the creative method of improvisational and directly welded sculpture work of contemporary metal sculpture also straightforwardly echoes the notions of flow and spontaneity of Taoism's cosmic life. That is why the artwork could be so rich and full of oriental humanistic ideas. In this paper, the authors listed the artists and their metal sculpture works that have been directly or indirectly influenced by Cubism, Constructivism and Futurism in the 20th century art movements. The author also discussed the aesthetic perspectives of these works echoing the philosophical ideas of Taoism.
Keywords
Lao-Chuang aesthetics, Metal sculpture, Contemporary sculpture, Abstract art, Improvisation
Despite his humble origins, Ju Ming’s ceaseless effort has earned him worldly fame and opportunities throughout the globe over the past half century. During this time, high modern, late modern, postmodern, post colonial and globalization phases have come and gone, and Taiwanese society has responded to these changes accordingly. Ju Ming's traversal between the local and global environments has doubtless enriched his perspective and artistic oeuvre, which has in turn challenged scholars to generate various ways to frame Ju Ming's sculptural art.
"Nativism? Modernism? Postmodernism?" adopts these periodizations to examine the impact of Nativism and Modernism on Ju Ming and how the artist established his own artistic identity, and examines how Ju Ming’s venturing into the Western world coincided with the rise of Postmodernism, followed by Postcolonial discourse. This paper will additionally focus on how Ju Ming's Living World Series corresponded to this global trend.
Finally, this paper proposes to discard the periodization of Nativism, Modernism and Postmodernism to allow a new perspective on how Ju Ming's personal choices coincided with these global shifts with increasing spontaneity. Through this examination, we may better understand the artist's autonomy, spontaneity and humanity as a means of recognizing his consistent philosophical perspective on art creation.
從立柱來看廟宇藝術——以艋舺龍山寺和大龍峒保安宮的三川殿立柱為例The Pillars of Temples'Art: Based on the Pillars of the San-Chuan-Dian of Manka Lungshan Temple and Dalongdong Baoan Temple
Hundreds of temples are hidden in the alleys and streets in Taiwan, which become centers of folk tradition’s culture beliefs. In addition to the historical and cultural significance, each detailed constructing structures of temples' art have their own model. With the atmosphere of the changing times, temples' structures constantly replace and update. After these new elements of the fusion of traditions, it evolved a complicated but interesting phenomenon.
When it comes to Temples' art, subjects are mainly focus on wood carving, stone carving and painting. In addition to decorating effects, architectural forms and decorative patterns have been the key issues of Masters of Carpenters' performance skills. The pillars of Temples, in addition to the indispensable component, but also a creating material for Masters of Carpenters to use in the building space of Temples' architectures. For example, the distance between pillars and pillars of permutations and combinations, would form a far-reaching extension of the visual difference of the building, not to mention the pillars of styles and their sizes and so on. This article is to explore Temples' space of the San-Chuan-Dian, also a case study of two Temples, Manka Lungshan Temple and Dalongdong Baoan Temple. This disquisition is to clarify the pillars of the San-Chuan-Dian and attempting to resolve the diverse faces of Temples' art.
