Ju Ming (朱銘) is well known for his sculptures, created in bronze, clay and wood, but some people may have overlooked the fact that he is a painter too.
From the beginning of this month, the Juming Museum is presenting many of Ju's newest works in the Living World Series-Monk exhibition. It offers a rare opportunity for the public to take a peek at the mind of this grand master of art.
Ju sketches monks by using charcoal pencil or ink, occasionally coloring them lightly, and applies his technique in collage works to put a different twist on traditional ink paintings.
PHOTO COURTESY OF JUMING MUSEUM
Ju also adopts the collage technique, working with yellow and orange crepe paper to create a simple elegance with geometrical shapes. By combining different art mediums and using Chinese and Western techniques, Ju's New Ink Painting was born.
"Art is cultivation and without cultivation, the flowers from the hearts can never blossom," Ju answered when asked about the source of his vitality. What Ju means is that cultivation does not refer to some abstruse Buddhist philosophy, but daily comprehension of hows and whys and taking the effort to carry it out.
Born in 1938 in a small Miaoli County town, Ju gained international fame and then dedicated 12 years of his life to build Juming Museum, by investing almost all of his money in 11 hectares of land in Chinsan (金山), Taipei County. In 1999 this legendary gallery was founded. The museum "is home to an integral collection of Ju's work throughout his career," said Calvin Ju (
At 15, Ju was trained for three years in traditional temple wood-carving. In 1968, he was under renowned sculptor and modernist Yuyu Yang's (
In 1976, Ju's "raw yet refined treatment," as Calvin Ju describes it, of his wood sculptures won him great fame after an exhibition held at the National Museum of History in Taipei.
According to Lai Shen-chon (賴賢宗), Chinese Language and Literature professor of the National Taipei University, Ju's artistic creations can be divided into three stages: First, his "Nativist Series" is represented by his well-loved sculptures of water buffalos and historical figures such as Guan Gong (
Third, his favorite "Living World Series" explores the many facets of modern life, including his recent inclusion of over 300 bronze statues of war heroes.
"Monk" is the newest art form added to the Living World Series and touches upon self-cultivation. It is, perhaps, the artist's intention to pose the timely question of inner peace, at a time when society is deeply divided.
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
Even by the standards of Ukraine’s International Legion, which comprises volunteers from over 55 countries, Han has an unusual backstory. Born in Taichung, he grew up in Costa Rica — then one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — where a relative worked for the embassy. After attending an American international high school in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, Han — who prefers to use only his given name for OPSEC (operations security) reasons — moved to the US in his teens. He attended Penn State University before returning to Taiwan to work in the semiconductor industry in Kaohsiung, where he
On May 2, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), at a meeting in support of Taipei city councilors at party headquarters, compared President William Lai (賴清德) to Hitler. Chu claimed that unlike any other democracy worldwide in history, no other leader was rooting out opposing parties like Lai and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). That his statements are wildly inaccurate was not the point. It was a rallying cry, not a history lesson. This was intentional to provoke the international diplomatic community into a response, which was promptly provided. Both the German and Israeli offices issued statements on Facebook
Perched on Thailand’s border with Myanmar, Arunothai is a dusty crossroads town, a nowheresville that could be the setting of some Southeast Asian spaghetti Western. Its main street is the final, dead-end section of the two-lane highway from Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city 120kms south, and the heart of the kingdom’s mountainous north. At the town boundary, a Chinese-style arch capped with dragons also bears Thai script declaring fealty to Bangkok’s royal family: “Long live the King!” Further on, Chinese lanterns line the main street, and on the hillsides, courtyard homes sit among warrens of narrow, winding alleyways and
RSS