Ju Ming (Zhu Ming)

executed in 1996, this work is number 3 from an edition of 8

Sculptures Ju Ming: Taichi and Living World Series, Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, Macao, 2005, p. 39, different edition illustrated in colour

Macao, Temporary Exhibition Gallery of the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, Sculpture Exhibition of Ju Ming: Taichi & Living World Series, 2005, different edition exhibited
Hong Kong, Times Square, Ju Ming Sculpture Exhibition, 2006, this edition exhibited

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.
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From Complexity to Simplicity: The Spirituality of “Forgetting”

Of traditional Chinese painters, Bada Shanren of the Qing Dynasty is the artist Ju Ming admires most. From the simplification of ink painting advocated by the Yuan Dynasty painter Zhao Mengfu to Bada Shanren’s conscious “lessening”, there have been numerous examples of innovations in Chinese painting that came not in the form of new uses of brush and ink, but rather through the use of less brush and ink, highlighting the notion that less can be more. Both of these painters were literati artists who diverged from the trends of their epochs with an avant-garde spirit. Their ideas lent new meaning to Chinese art and had a historic influence on future generations. This trailblazing spirit is also evident in Ju Ming’s sculptures. He followed the dictum of his teacher, Yuyu Yang, to “forget”, casting off techniques that he had mastered and forms that had lingered in his mind. He retained rhythm and aura while disregarding form and leaving realism behind. Working in accordance with his own spirituality, he had no need to rely on pre-existing styles. Instead, he devised his own all-encompassing and unique creations. Over the entire course of his life, Ju Ming has never stopped creating, and “forgetting” is part of a lifelong philosophy that has allowed him to always bear in mind his ultimate goal: the formation of a unique individual style.

Johnson Chang Tsong-Zung once said that “reduction” is the basis of Ju Ming’s creative methods: the reduction of physical material to reveal images contained within. One large sculpture that exemplifies this theory is Taichi Series: Turn Advance (Lot 1024), made in 1996. This sculpture portrays the Taichi dictum that “one must sink in order to turn”. “Hands advance three parts, legs advance seven parts”: the figure’s centre of gravity drops toward the soles of his feet as he takes a step. However, when viewed from every angle, this work reveals a quasi-abstract expression that breaks from the past. Ju Ming captures the essence of Taichi boxing without adhering strictly to form, and the result embodies the words of Qi Baishi: “subtlety lies between seeming and not seeming”. By eschewing form but retaining resemblance, Ju Ming achieves an aesthetic beauty that contains the spirit of the Taichi practitioner. Western-educated artists of the Republican Era such as Xu Beihong generally embraced a more realist philosophy of art that emphasized the quality of the "life-like” and sought to capture both the form and the spirit of its object. Ju Ming’s unique form of expression more closely recalls the scholar-painters of the Ming and Qing Dynasties: a renewal and rethinking of the xieyi (freehand) tradition, or what might be called a sculptural expression of the Chinese literati spirit.

“If one is limited by form, one does not see essence; if one looks beyond appearances, one apprehends the rich subtleties within.”
Xie He, Record of the Classification of Old Painters