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Lot Essay
Ju Ming's Taichi Series portrays the physical movements of Taichi, while also reflecting spiritual concepts such as the duality of yin and yang, and the balance between heaven and earth. The series as a whole shows Ju Ming moving beyond narrative and figurative elements and toward a kind of pure spiritual communication. Just as Lin Fengmian brought Chinese painting into the modern era, Ju Ming's works are rich in traditional meanings while at the same time displaying modern sculptural characteristics. By uniting traditional Eastern aesthetics and Western sculptural techniques, he successfully expressed the “chi” – or spirit – of taichi and its movement, stillness, and strength, and established himself as a great presence among modern Chinese artists.
In the 1970s, Ju Ming entered into an apprenticeship with master sculptor Yuyu Yang. It was at Yang's suggestion that he began studying taichi, which inspired him to explore art on a more inner, spiritual level. In the 80s and 90s, as his creative output surged, Ju Ming gradually developed both the vocabulary and the implications of his Taichi Series , initially producing the early works of the series in wood. Ju Ming chose wood as a starting point after thinking deeply about the idea of unity between form and subject. The textures, knots, and scars of wood record the passage of a living thing through the wind, rain, sun and frost of the four seasons. Taichi says that we should strive for an ideal state of conformity with the harmonious workings of the natural universe. As Ju Ming began his creative work, confronting this record of life inside the wood, he followed the traces of nature as he worked from the outside of his wood block toward the inside, revealing step by step its inherent, hidden beauty. Most of the early sculptures in the series were conceived as single works, but after the 80s, based on the concept of mutually dependent dualities in taichi, Ju Ming began creating the pairs of sparring figures that became the classic forms of the series.
In Taichi Series – Sparring , from 1988, we see how Ju Ming abstracts the physical forms of his sparring partners, leaving a strong suggestion of unbroken power hidden beneath their incisive outlines. Even while transcending any literal imitation of physical forms, they nevertheless enhance our perception of graceful, fluid motion and draw us even closer to the true meaning of taichi. Clearly, Ju Ming's gaze here is no longer fixed on the visible world, and he has transcended the limits of what is real. While this reveals certain strong elements of modernism, the origins of his work lie even more in the aesthetic thought of Eastern traditions. Ju Ming once said, “When as an artist you give your hands total freedom and you create at high speed … then your mind has no energy left for thinking, and only pure intuition can lead you toward a completed work.” These creations thus originate in 'freedom of thought' rather than careful pondering on the shape of his subjects. If the techniques of sculpture can be compared to brushwork, and if its textures are like lines painted in freehand style, then Ju Ming's sculpture evokes the cheerful lightness of the ancient literati painters: they too freed themselves from concrete images to find a kind of pure expression of the spirit. Viewing a Ju Ming work from different angles, we discover how masterfully he incorporates into his structures the opposing elements of light and darkness, yin and yang, adding a rich dynamic of movement to the visual experience. Each stroke of the axe or cut of Ju Ming's chisel recalls the way in which rocks in traditional Chinese gardens were hewn, imitating the undulating shapes of nature for intriguing shifts of light and shadow under the changes of sun and moon. The origin of Ju Ming's work in such traditional aesthetic and philosophical notions distinguishes it from the sculptural traditions of the West.
Western artists in the 20th century began to take a scientific approach toward the aesthetic interpretation of their subjects. Creative concepts such as Cubism and Futurism arose in which objects were deconstructed and reorganized, and those schools of thought had an especially strong influence on sculpture. From then on, sculpture was no longer confined to the idea of 'reproduction,' but instead focused on aesthetic aspects of objects in three-dimensional space such as form and balance, volume and dynamics. Umberto Boccioni, in his representative work Unique Forms of Continuity in Space , employs Cubism's geometric segmentation and deconstruction and creates a layered representation of movement with a kind of 'storyboard' technique, an experiment in using the static medium of sculpture to present transient impressions of movement. Boccioni's interpretation, in contrast with the way Ju Ming characterizes movement in Sparring , tends to rely on a more objective foundation, reflecting Futurism's attempts to capture 'speed and motion.' Ju Ming's sculpture differs in seeking, within this motionless state, an endless dialogue involving the viewer, his subject, time and space, and light and shadow. Sparring lets the viewer feel the presence of movement, and by suggesting the coexistence of yin and yang, it creates a concrete image of what the Book of Change refers to as the eternal interactions of all things in the heavens and the earth.
Ju Ming's 1991 Sparring , from the same Taichi Series, set a record high price for a Ju Ming wood sculpture at Christie's in 2011; the Taichi Series—Sparring presented here dates from 1988. Both are exceptional in terms of their form and their ability to evoke movement, and each is an equally outstanding work in its own right. The success of Ju Ming's Taichi Series reflects the new layers of meaning he built on the foundations laid by his predecessors, his ability to present traditional concepts in modern, abstract forms, and the combination of intriguing implications with original and unconventional forms. All of these were what made him the greatest master of his generation in the field of modern Chinese sculpture.
In the 1970s, Ju Ming entered into an apprenticeship with master sculptor Yuyu Yang. It was at Yang's suggestion that he began studying taichi, which inspired him to explore art on a more inner, spiritual level. In the 80s and 90s, as his creative output surged, Ju Ming gradually developed both the vocabulary and the implications of his Taichi Series , initially producing the early works of the series in wood. Ju Ming chose wood as a starting point after thinking deeply about the idea of unity between form and subject. The textures, knots, and scars of wood record the passage of a living thing through the wind, rain, sun and frost of the four seasons. Taichi says that we should strive for an ideal state of conformity with the harmonious workings of the natural universe. As Ju Ming began his creative work, confronting this record of life inside the wood, he followed the traces of nature as he worked from the outside of his wood block toward the inside, revealing step by step its inherent, hidden beauty. Most of the early sculptures in the series were conceived as single works, but after the 80s, based on the concept of mutually dependent dualities in taichi, Ju Ming began creating the pairs of sparring figures that became the classic forms of the series.
In Taichi Series – Sparring , from 1988, we see how Ju Ming abstracts the physical forms of his sparring partners, leaving a strong suggestion of unbroken power hidden beneath their incisive outlines. Even while transcending any literal imitation of physical forms, they nevertheless enhance our perception of graceful, fluid motion and draw us even closer to the true meaning of taichi. Clearly, Ju Ming's gaze here is no longer fixed on the visible world, and he has transcended the limits of what is real. While this reveals certain strong elements of modernism, the origins of his work lie even more in the aesthetic thought of Eastern traditions. Ju Ming once said, “When as an artist you give your hands total freedom and you create at high speed … then your mind has no energy left for thinking, and only pure intuition can lead you toward a completed work.” These creations thus originate in 'freedom of thought' rather than careful pondering on the shape of his subjects. If the techniques of sculpture can be compared to brushwork, and if its textures are like lines painted in freehand style, then Ju Ming's sculpture evokes the cheerful lightness of the ancient literati painters: they too freed themselves from concrete images to find a kind of pure expression of the spirit. Viewing a Ju Ming work from different angles, we discover how masterfully he incorporates into his structures the opposing elements of light and darkness, yin and yang, adding a rich dynamic of movement to the visual experience. Each stroke of the axe or cut of Ju Ming's chisel recalls the way in which rocks in traditional Chinese gardens were hewn, imitating the undulating shapes of nature for intriguing shifts of light and shadow under the changes of sun and moon. The origin of Ju Ming's work in such traditional aesthetic and philosophical notions distinguishes it from the sculptural traditions of the West.
Western artists in the 20th century began to take a scientific approach toward the aesthetic interpretation of their subjects. Creative concepts such as Cubism and Futurism arose in which objects were deconstructed and reorganized, and those schools of thought had an especially strong influence on sculpture. From then on, sculpture was no longer confined to the idea of 'reproduction,' but instead focused on aesthetic aspects of objects in three-dimensional space such as form and balance, volume and dynamics. Umberto Boccioni, in his representative work Unique Forms of Continuity in Space , employs Cubism's geometric segmentation and deconstruction and creates a layered representation of movement with a kind of 'storyboard' technique, an experiment in using the static medium of sculpture to present transient impressions of movement. Boccioni's interpretation, in contrast with the way Ju Ming characterizes movement in Sparring , tends to rely on a more objective foundation, reflecting Futurism's attempts to capture 'speed and motion.' Ju Ming's sculpture differs in seeking, within this motionless state, an endless dialogue involving the viewer, his subject, time and space, and light and shadow. Sparring lets the viewer feel the presence of movement, and by suggesting the coexistence of yin and yang, it creates a concrete image of what the Book of Change refers to as the eternal interactions of all things in the heavens and the earth.
Ju Ming's 1991 Sparring , from the same Taichi Series, set a record high price for a Ju Ming wood sculpture at Christie's in 2011; the Taichi Series—Sparring presented here dates from 1988. Both are exceptional in terms of their form and their ability to evoke movement, and each is an equally outstanding work in its own right. The success of Ju Ming's Taichi Series reflects the new layers of meaning he built on the foundations laid by his predecessors, his ability to present traditional concepts in modern, abstract forms, and the combination of intriguing implications with original and unconventional forms. All of these were what made him the greatest master of his generation in the field of modern Chinese sculpture.