Bronze sculpture Edition: 9/30

34 × 22 × 21 cm. 13 3/8 × 8 5/8 × 8 1/4 in.

Signed in Chinese and numbered on the right of backside

LITERATURE
1990, The Sculpture of The Twelve Animals by Ju Ming, Caves Art Center, Taipei
PROVENANCE
Caves Art Center, Taipei
Acquired directly by present important private Asian collector from the above

Break the Boundary of Shape, Fulfill the Charm of Spirit
The Great Beauty in Ju Ming's Sculptures

“Ju Ming's works seem to be rooted in Chinese culture yet completely spontaneous. In these moving images, Ju Ming has fulfilled the soul into modern Chinese sculpture.”

――Michael Sullivan, British art historian

As a well-known modern Chinese sculptor, Ju Ming has always based his artistic expression on the simultaneous presentation of “shape” and “spirit” in his decades of sculpture career. With the drastic skills, he adapts his expression to the nature of materials, extracting spiritual philosophies and laying the foundation of modern oriental sculpture.

A Balance of Yin and Yang, the Condensation of Perpetual Dynamics

As Ju's most representative creation, Tai Chi series created in the 1980s and 1990s can be regarded as the pinnacle of Ju's fusion of tradition and modernity, which made him famous in the international art scene. He has successively held large-scale solo exhibitions at the Max Hutchinson Gallery in New York, the Exchange Square in Hong Kong, Yorkshire Sculpture Park in England, the Dunkirk Museum of Modern Art in France, and the Sculpture Museum in Hakone, Japan. His Taichi Series-Single Whip, Taichi Series-Boxing, Taichi Series-Arch, and others exhibited have all become world-famous works and helped him build up the reputation of a Chinese sculpture master. Taichi Series-Boxing (Lot 140) is an extraordinary example of them.

In this work, the martial artists who move against each other show a rhythm of ups and downs and exudes a balanced and condensed beauty. On the right, the offensive movement is fully developed. His head and neck are in a retracted posture with a triangular smooth surface, with the limbs extended in a large block shape. The artist exaggerated the right arm that exerts force, and retained the pre-cast rough texture, which visually deepens the contrast between the inside yin and outside yang and shows the power that shakes the earth in a ready-to-go posture. In contrast, the left piece is in the style of pushing hands, showing a sense of contracting and calm steadiness. The posture of arms and legs emphasizes the balanced relationship between the upper and lower and that between the front and back. Judging the two side by side, the opposites of concentration and movement, advance and retreat, opening and closing are transformed into the most powerful echoes of each other, so that the spiritual thought of Tai Chi duality is most exquisitely displayed.

The Coexisting Real and Unreal, the Blending “Us” in Realm

To explore the Tai Chi thought of “mutual growth”, in the 1990s, Ju introduced the arch shape in architecture into Tai Chi, and developed a classic work, Arch, which continued the dualistic form of two-person boxing. Ju's Arch series is also favored by the world's top universities, such as his Gate of Wisdom standing in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Gate of Health in the University of Cambridge, and the one standing with the work of Henry Moore in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford University. These works confirm the aesthetic value of the abstract works on the theme of Tai Chi. Taichi Series-Arch (Lot 138) presented this time is a representative work for the “collection on the desk”.

In this work, Ju simplified the movements of the figures to abstract moving shapes. It evolved from the boxing posture, with the hands and feet of two figures intersecting with each other, connecting the floating breath and power. The person on the left has one foot supported on the ground, with his body probing toward the other side in a smooth arc. On the other side, viewers can no longer see the concrete representation of the human body, which has turned into a neat curve, echoing the lines proposed above, like a rotating Tai Chi totem. The transparency in the centre creates the “Empty”, the depth and space relationship, just like the round arches in Chinese gardens, connecting the surrounding scenery in series, forming the grand realm of the “common self”.

Price estimate:
HKD: 60,000 - 100,000
USD: 7,600 - 12,700

Auction Result:
HKD: 98,400