Ju Ming (Zhu Ming)

executed circa 1985, this work is number 20 from an edition of 20

This work is consistent with the artist's chosen medium and working method. It is in our opinion that the work is in very good condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Curating Ju Ming

Ju Ming is an artist of international renown whose global career can be described as having been launched from the unique platform of Hong Kong. This was important for me as well: it was because of Ju Ming that I was curating independent exhibitions overseas as early as the 1980s, starting in Asia and then expanding to Europe. Following my curation of Ju Ming’s solo exhibition at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in 1982, I was able to organize two additional exhibitions in Asia, one at the Ayala Museum in Manila and another at the Bhirasri Institute of Modern Art in Bangkok. In 1986, it was Hong Kong again that played a role in linking the artist with the Western art world. The Hong Kong Arts Centre was hosting a sensational solo exhibition featuring sculptor Henry Moore, whose works then dominated all of the most visible public spaces in Hong Kong. On Ju Ming’s behalf, I contacted Nigel Cameron, the artistic consultant for Exchange Square, the only remaining venue available for display. Nigel agreed to take on Ju Ming’s sculptures and scheduled them to be displayed concurrently with Moore’s. It was in this way that the works of both artists, one from the East and the other from the West, were exhibited alongside each other, with Moore’s established reputation conferring a legitimacy upon Ju Ming’s rising fame. And by the end of the year, I was curating a solo exhibition for Ju Ming at the National Gallery Singapore. Spanning both the entire indoor and outdoor spaces, the exhibition featured an even richer collection than was shown at Exchange Square, and was considered one of the most significant, memorable exhibitions in Singapore of the 1980s.

The sponsoring institutions of Ju Ming’s 1986 outdoor exhibitions in Hong Kong and Singapore both collected major pieces from those shows: Hong Kong Land acquired a pair of bronze sculptures titled Single Whip from his Taichi series, displayed at Exchange Square, and the Singapore Art Museum collected a lively group of coloured bronze sculptures from the Living World series, installed near the Museum entrance. Almost thirty years later, these works are now considered as iconic examples of public art. 

Generally speaking, the artworks that I show in my curated overseas exhibitions are not for sale, unless acquired by the hosting institution, while commercial exhibitions are always conducted jointly with local galleries. Aside from running Hanart TZ Gallery, I’ve organized a wide variety of exhibitions as an independent curator. In the 1980s, Ju Ming’s main collectors came from Hong Kong and Singapore. Following the 1986 acquisition of Single Whip at Exchange Square, one year later Szeto Wai, architect of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, commissioned and donated Ju Ming’s Taichi Arch to the school. The sculpture was the artist’s largest piece at the time, and it was an eye-catching symbol of the campus’ architectural style. Sitting in the center of the main campus plaza across from the library, Taichi Arch was a milestone piece in Ju Ming’s large-scale bronze sculptures. Angular and powerful, the sculpture, as Ju Ming explained, was meant to echo the appearance of the stone quarries etched into the hills of the campus. The university later awarded Ju Ming with an honorary doctorate in 2011, a gesture to a decades-long kinship.

Hong Kong is home to several other outdoor pieces by Ju Ming. Another influential work is Harmony, also from the Taichi series, located across from the main entrance of the Bank of China building. Selected by I.M. Pei and completed in 1989, Ju Ming’s original concept for the piece was to create two opponents, one pushing and the other being thrown down. But later it was decided that the image of the big trampling upon the small ought be avoided, resulting in the final product: two figures, pushing hands; a picture, indeed, of Harmony. The piece was a donation from Mr. Xu Zhantang, who was also a generous sponsor of a large exhibition in London. This 1991 exhibition at London’s South Bank Centre was a decisive event in launching Ju Ming’s reputation in the West, an opportunity made possible by my old friend Sir David Tang.

Ju Ming’s sculptures at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and at the Bank of China building are both powerfully evocative of the qualities and texture of natural stone. The style is representative of Ju Ming’s unique approach to bronze sculpture. in the 1980s. Ju Ming began gravitating toward this new material following his work with wooden Taichi sculptures in the 70s: the 1983 exhibitions at the Ayala Museum and the Bhirasri Institute of Modern Art featured only bronze Taichi sculptures. Having studied under the tutelage of sculptor Yuyu Yang (Yang Yingfeng) for a decade, the artist’s practice and grasp of sculpting technique was wide and comprehensive. While bronze is generally preferred for its ease of preservation, from an artistic angle the main difference between working with bronze and with wood is that of moulding versus carving: the former involves opening up a concrete structure, unveiling the form that is buried inside, while the latter is a process of shaping, manipulating a pliable mass into a desired form. But Ju Ming resisted creating his bronze works purely through moulding. Rather, he retained his carving technique by creating his moulds out of pieces of hand-carved Styrofoam, which resulted in an effect that, more so than wood, closely resembled the style and feel of natural stone. In fact, Ju Ming’s Taichi sculptures can be best appreciated by applying the traditional aesthetic qualities used to judge Chinese garden rocks, known as qishi or “strange stones”: “beauty, penetrability, dynamism, and abundance of crevice and crease”. Aside from texture (“dynamism”) and substance (“beauty”), an emphasis was placed on the sensation of space and motion (“penetrability” and “abundance of crevice and crease”). This sense of motion is exactly where Ju Ming’s virtuosity lies. He creates a fraught tension between the desires for movement and stillness, rendering figures that possess not only the “form” of motion, but also its “momentum.” Chinese outdoor sculpture traditionally has been largely religious in theme.  Among the literati, however, one of the most important three-dimensional figures is the “strange rock” (qishi) while sculptures of the human form were not held in particular regard. The absence of figure sculptures in Chinese gardens evidences a major difference between the East and the West, especially against the context of the Western tradition of mythical sculptures. In the realm of three-dimensional art, rendering the spirit of the qishi into a resource that can be used in contemporary Chinese art is an undertaking of profound significance. It is my belief that Ju Ming has accomplished this task brilliantly, and that it is his most important contribution to modern Chinese culture.

Ju Ming caught my eye as early as the 1970s, and I had high expectations of him. I hadn’t been satisfied with the contemporary Chinese art that was coming out of the art schools. It seemed impossible then to break away from the Western system of discourse, to establish a voice that arose from one’s personal history yet chimed with the current times. So in 1976, when I came across Lion Art Publishing’s coverage of Hung Tung and Ju Ming’s exhibitions I was filled with elation and surprise. Discovering that such strong and powerful art could arise from the soil of history, I only became more dissatisfied with the direction of the art academy system. In 1980, I began hosting exhibitions independently at the Hong Kong Arts Centre. The first artists I showed were Hong Kong’s Luis Chan and Taiwan’s Ju Ming. My exhibitions gradually expanded in scope and number, and included the first Hong Kong exhibitions of the naïf artist Hung Tung and of Ju Ming’s teacher Yuyu Yang. At the time, Ju Ming was most well-known in Taiwan for his depictions of farm animals and historical figures. There were two reasons for this: the artist had been prolific and successful in creating temple statues, and the general population was still rather reserved in their acceptance of contemporary art. When it came to promoting Ju Ming in Hong Kong, however, I placed my emphasis on the Taichi series, as well as the then-new Living World series, which at the time featured colorful wooden sculptures. This was my way of releasing him from the folk elements attached to his previous image. In the wake of these exhibitions,  Ju Ming rose to fame in Hong Kong and abroad, becoming particularly known for his Taichi series. In speaking about the artist’s works in the 1970s, Mr. Yu Dagang once observed that the wood carving technique Ju Ming used for his animal sculptures evoked the xieyi brushstrokes of Chinese calligraphy, and compared it to Qi Baishi’s depiction of fowl. I agree wholeheartedly with this observation. Ju Ming’s treatment of folk subjects elevated them, linking them to the literati xieyi style and flavour, unleashing the Chinese expressive spirit anew and creating a contemporary art that was deeply rooted in Chinese tradition. In this way, not only does Ju Ming’s Taichi series serve as an icon for Chinese contemporary art, it was the vehicle that profoundly transformed the traditional figures of folk gods into something universal, representing the two forces of yin and yang. The Taichi series can thus be considered a modern interpretation of China’s qishi, as well as the modern incarnation of the temple gods.

The 1991 Ju Ming exhibition at London’s South Bank Centre owes a great deal to Sir David Tang’s generosity. For this exhibition, he and I took many trips between Taipei and London, rallying the help of many others, including Sir Ronald Grierson, then Honorary Chairman of the South Bank Centre. It was only with the sponsorship of Mr. Xu Zhantang and Mr. Tang’s friendships with influential society figures that this important exhibition was made possible, firmly establishing Ju Ming’s reputation in the British art world. The exhibition was situated alongside the Thames at the South Bank Centre, and was the first to be held in the new Queen’s Walkway exhibition space. The Times did a half-page report on the exhibition, creating an instant sensation. At the end of the year, the exhibition travelled to Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Central England, where the museum’s sculpture garden collection was dominated mostly by Henry Moore. This exhibition, then, was a reunion, echoing the two artists’ previous encounter in Hong Kong. It was this event that marked Ju Ming’s official acceptance into the Western art world, a privilege that made it easier for me to plan more activities across Europe later on.

I’ve hosted many types of exhibitions for Ju Ming in Europe. In addition to large-scale solo exhibitions, there was Ju Ming’s participation in the ‘Open’ International Exhibition of Sculptures and Installations in Venice (1994), the Art on the Beach sculpture exhibition in Saint Tropez (1991) and other gallery exhibitions. The most impressive, however, were the public solo exhibitions in Paris and Berlin, two of the world’s most important art centres. Our Paris partner, Herve Odermatt, was an established dealer in Western early Modernist oil paintings, but he was enthralled with Chinese contemporary art, and in particular, with Ju Ming, but he had scant experience in curating exhibitions. At the time, I was also collaborating with Enrico Navarra Gallery in Paris, which in the 90s was focused on the works of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat (and in fact can be credited with a good deal of the latter’s success in the art market over the last twenty years). Working together, then, Herve was able to coordinate and secure the square at the prestigious Place Vendome, while Enrico assisted with setting up the exhibition, putting together the catalogue, and the PR. In December of 1997, the event began with Mme Jacques Chirac presiding over the opening ceremony, and an evening banquet at the Ritz Carlton. It was a fortuitous coincidence that Baron Guy Ullens happened to have a long-term suite at the Ritz that directly faced the Square, so every day he had been watching me set up for the exhibition from his window. Only on the day before the opening did he come over to say hello and offer his congratulations. Even more remarkable, however, was Ju Ming suddenly revealing to me on the day of the opening that it was his 60^th birthday. We had twice the cause to celebrate. Speaking of age, in the 1980s while preparing for exhibitions, the two of us would often get into spats, and on a few of these occasions, Ju Ming would mention that a fortuneteller had predicted that he would have a short life, so he was not to be exposed to too much provocation. Today, we know that the artist has safely crossed the tumultuous tides of fate.

The 2003 exhibition in Berlin was hosted at a venue that seemed to encourage reverie. On the Unter den Linden in East Berlin, on the grassy pedestrian mall in front of the Adlon hotel starting at the arch of the Brandenburg Gate, a row of Ju Ming’s Tachi sculptures were positioned in a line. An iconic location, where once Hitler’s soldiers paraded, the area today has become an important tourist and cultural hub. The opening ceremony at the Adlon was especially moving, and  we experienced the amiability and hospitality of the Berlin government officials and local residents, as well as a collective, common spirit. Art critic Maggie Pai remarked that this exhibition signified a new zenith in Ju Ming’s career, the public space exalting his works to another level. When the sculptures were removed following the exhibition, the critic, who had only high praise for this outdoor exhibition, admitted to a sense of void and loss.

Within Asia, the apogee of Ju Ming’s exhibitions was marked by the 1995 Hakone Open-Air Museum show in Japan. No sculpture garden is more highly regarded in Asia than the Hakone. Located amid the mountainous hot springs, it symbolizes an unattainable dream for many in the Taiwanese art world. In the 1970s, the Hakone Open-Air Museum acquired one of Ju Ming’s wooden sculptures, Single Whip, from his Taichi Series, but expressed no further interest at the time. After the celebrated success of the London show I approached the Hakone with the idea of a major exhibition, working together with art consultant Mrs. Mariko Yoshida and Huang Cailang, Director of the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. Together we arranged for a large-scale solo exhibition for Ju Ming’s sculptures at the museum.

In sum, the greatest accomplishment of those two decades of exhibitions and endeavour has been to position a Chinese sculptor at the very highest levels of the international art world. Each of Ju Ming’s major overseas exhibitions, whether at the Hakone Open-Air Museum, London’s South Bank Cultural Centre, or in Paris or Berlin, as well the myriad smaller scale art events, has carried with it an air of pioneering excitement. Being able to take this long journey together with an artist, from the earliest emergence of his art into the world to his establishment as one the art world’s leading figures, has been an experience gratifying beyond words. 

Johnson Chang Tsong-Zung

Ju Ming:  Embodying The Dao of Martial Arts

“He with strength and courage has the ability to excel in both “Wu” and “Wen”—this passage from chapter 27 of Chronicle of the Eastern Zhou States illustrates the Chinese tradition of the poet-warrior. If “Wen” refers to the enlightenment of ethics-based humanities, then “Wu” reflects the spirit or Dao of martial arts, which emphasises insight and introspection. It is the nature of men to see others but struggle to see themselves; concrete enemies are easy to defend against, but abstract enemies are difficult to evaluate. Martial virtue is about more than technique, for in addition to defeating one’s opponent, one must also pursue an ultimate practice of transcending the self. Ju Ming’s sculpture practice, itself a process of unceasing self-transcendence, embodies the four aesthetics of martial arts: form, spirit, virtue, and Dao (the Way of Nature). These aesthetics, like the aesthetics of art, are unifications of the internal and the external. Ju Ming saw martial virtue as an aesthetic object, and he used sculpture to transform the dynamic state of Kung Fu into static sculptures that transform the beholder’s understanding and imagination of combat into a transcendent artistic experience.

Traditionally, the aesthetic standards of Chinese sculpture have emphasised not the shape of a figure, but the cohesion of the overall artistic concept. The artistic concept is seen as the ultimate goal that the artist strives to attain. Garden design provides us with the best example of how sculpture and creative concept are appreciated in Chinese culture because it reflects the literati pursuit of becoming one with nature. Landscaping and stone-arrangement are intended to express the ideal of unity between man and his environment. Ju Ming’s art subverts the traditional Chinese appreciation of “literati” sculpture by expressing creative concepts related to martial virtue. The result is a new creative idiom in the world of sculpture and traditional Chinese culture. The creative concept of “martial virtue” comes from the principles of refining physical form while cultivating internal spirit and virtue in order to flourish with Dao. Dao is the highest state pursued in “martial virtue”. By becoming detached from technique, one can use it to pursue Dao, and bring one’s skill in concert with Dao. Then one ultimately arrives at the formlessness of Great Dao, in which the image (in this case, sculpture) contains the creative concept of Dao. Here we find the “great beauty” of Zhuangzi’s aesthetic philosophy: attaining the acme of beauty through the creative concept of “martial virtue”.

The emergence of sculpture in the Western world can be traced back through Neoclassicism, the Renaissance, and the Middle Ages to ancient Greece. Religious content became part of the purpose of figure sculpture before eventually being supplanted by symbols of authority. In the realm of modern art, sculpture became a way of breaking with the past by subverting its paradigms. Henry Moore, who was influenced by South American, African, and Asian cultures, created some of the first abstract modern sculptures. The Japanese sculptor Isamu Noguchi, who was influenced by Brancusi, introduced Eastern spatial aesthetics to the rationality of Western Modernism. Ju Ming also used unprecedented designs and techniques to attack the conventions of modern sculpture in cross-cultural communication. However, his sculpture practice is also rooted in Chinese culture, and it earnestly addresses the humanity of the lives of ordinary people. Ju Ming once said, “My career in art is like the growth of a tree. Native culture is the roots, the Taichi series is the trunk and branches, and the Living World series is the flowers”. Nativist, Taichi, and Living World: these three series overlapped in time and grew together in meaning. Together, they represent Ju Ming’s lifelong pursuit of great beauty.

Johnson Chang Tsong-Zung first learned of the sculptor Ju Ming in 1976, when he read a magazine article about an exhibition at the National Museum of History in Taipei. For nearly a quarter of a century, from 1982 to 2006, Chang was the primary curator and organizer for major exhibitions by Ju Ming. With the exception of a few exhibitions in New York in the 1980s, Chang was responsible for virtually all of the artist’s exhibitions outside of Taiwan during this twenty-five-year period, including all the major outdoor exhibitions in Europe, the UK and Asia that launched and established Ju Ming’s international reputation, for example, the 1991 Ju Ming Taichi Sculptures exhibition at the South Bank Centre in London, the 1997 sculpture exhibition at La Place Vendôme in Paris, and the 2003 solo exhibition in Berlin. Ju Ming once said that it was Mr. Chang, who was also his agent at the time, whom he must thank for his success overseas. Without Mr. Chang’s support and guidance, it would have been impossible to achieve his dream of “letting the world see Ju Ming, and letting the world understand his poignant artistry”. This special auction features works from Mr. Chang’s collection of sculptures from Ju Ming’s Taichi series, as well as works from the Living World series. Shepherd Boy and two versions of Rooster and Hen, works that portray Chinese village life, are also among the twenty-six rare and valuable artworks from the various periods of Ju Ming’s decades-long career.

The Way of Nature: The Method of No Method

The painter Shi Tao emphasised “the method of no method”, and he regarded artistic expression more highly than technique. In this vein, Ju Ming devised new techniques and used new mediums in order to meet the needs of his artistry. Ju Ming once said that it is easy to learn, but more difficult to “forget”, which requires willpower and perseverance. In this sense he sought to “forget [his] teachers,” as Yuyu Yang had recommended him to do in order to find his own style, and as he continuously studied new ideas, he gradually cast off the influence of Master Yang and his earlier teacher, Lee Chin-Chuan. He also tried to “forget materials”, repeatedly starting over at square one and abandoning familiar techniques in order to explore new materials and methods. In this way he gradually worked toward his own unique methods of expression and individual style.

During the Yongzheng era of the Qing Dynasty, palace artisans made porcelain vases that perfectly imitated the appearance and texture of rosewood. Ju Ming’s meticulous expression of wood texture in bronze is well demonstrated by one work in this special auction, Taichi Series: Single Whip (Lot 1001). As an early Taichi sculpture, Single Whip was cast directly from a wood sculpture. Ju Ming later recreated this delightful Chinese tradition of imitating textures by devising unique methods to imbue bronze sculptures with the feel of wood or stone. In the early 1980s, Ju Ming sought to increase the scale of his sculptures, but he had trouble finding sufficiently large blocks of wood, an important concern since the intrinsic qualities of wood influenced the end result. So he invented a new method of sculpting in bronze to meet his needs. He first hand-carved his sculptures in Styrofoam, then cast them in bronze. In order to simulate the texture of wood in the Styrofoam, he cut large planes in single, bold strokes before adding details to the surface with carving tools of his own design. In this way he avoided the need to follow the grain of wood; instead, he created the grain himself, just as classical Chinese painters observed the characteristics of nature and created techniques to imitate the texture of rocky mountains. The creation of these techniques harks back to the fupicun (axe-cut texture) brushstroke conceived by the Tang Dynasty painter Li Sixun, which facilitated his striking depictions of the texture and shape of northern China’s rocky mountains.

The slightly rounded edges and corners of Taichi Series: Thrust (Lot 1002) express a relatively loose and heavy Taichi posture with the texture of a boulder polished by the flowing water of a stream. This thrusting motion is a basic movement in the “pushing hands” style of Taichi sparring. One begins in a relaxed state and draws on a series of subtle techniques to maintain one’s own balance while using concentrated force to disrupt the balance of one’s opponent by attacking their upper limbs and torso. The goal in pushing hands is to “control and not be controlled”. Ju Ming used a hot steel wire to smooth out some of the granulated surface of the sculpture in order to simulate the texture of stone. This stone texture is also a characteristic of Taichi Series: Turn Stomp (Lot 1003). The kicking motion portrayed in this sculpture is similar to the more difficult “Cross Leg” Taichi posture. Standing on one foot, the practitioner whirls his body and kicks out the lifted heel. These three sculptures, Single Whip, Thrust, and Turn Stomp, reveal the rich variations of Ju Ming’s expressions of texture. They also demonstrate his fluid skill in using movement and focus to portray in sculpture the power of both forceful attack and fluid yielding that is at the heart of Taichi.