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Small in size could mean it's significant in meaning

By David Momphard
STAFF REPORTER
Sunday, Feb 15, 2004, Page 19

Jacqueline Lee's Short Stories Photo courtesy of the National Museum of History

To those who, when they think of sculpture, think of the massive stone monoliths of local artist Ju Ming (朱銘), the Eighth International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition could well prove instructional. For that matter, it would prove instructional to most anyone who takes the time to visit it. And it might prove inspirational as well.

The tri-annual Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition was born out of the University of Hawaii Department of Art. It was conceived as an economical way to tour sculptural works from an international coterie of artists. By limiting them only in the size of the work they submitted -- the finished piece must be able to fit inside a shoebox -- the exhibit could inexpensively be shipped to the four corners of the globe. Already the 83 works being displayed on the fourth floor of the National Museum of History have been presented 110 times in the US, Guam, Japan, Canada, Mexico and Taiwan, where it was first shown at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Art. (You'll not soon see an exhibit of Ju Ming's works travel so far.)

Bernice Akamine's Transmigration Photo courtesy of the National Museum of History

This limitation in size, besides serving economic interests, also provides the exhibit's first lesson: Sculpture includes far more than the huge pieces in public places which children play on and adults ignore. The first incarnation of the exhibit 20 years ago went a long way toward showing that the art form had moved on from its early tradition of mammoth stone and bronze works that accessorize buildings. That lesson learned, the past two decades have been a windfall of further lessons about the cultures from which the sculptures come, the artists who craft them and the materials they employ.

Those lessons have come in the form a dialogue between the artists and their audience and between the audience members themselves; a dialogue which starts with a single paragraph each artist includes with their piece and which often brings their work into a whole new light.

Bernice Akamine's Transmigration looks like some alien fruit or maybe a Faberge egg gone wrong. Then you read her paragraph. "We sat on the porch talking and laughing, Aunty Myrna, Kehau and myself. War stories. A shared existence of lying on that table, cancer exposed, hoping for a miracle."

Two sentences and a fragment and the piece suddenly takes on a myriad of potential meanings.

This likely has something to do with Akamine's ability to tell us a story with her one paragraph. Others did not. Terrence Lavin submitted a visually striking piece, Vector Oculus. But his pedantic paragraph of explanation leaves us wondering more about him than about his piece which, he writes, "attempts to address spatial relationships, pathogen transmission, articulating mechanisms and astronomical instruments."

These paragraphs, as much as the works themselves, help stir the viewer's imagination and interest in the piece, its creator, and the place from which they both came. No wonder then that, 20 years on, the Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition still has so much to teach us.

For your information :
The Eighth International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition will continue through Feb. 29 at the National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館), located at 49 Nanhai Rd, in Taipei (北市南海路49號). The museum is closed Mondays.
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