Taipei Part XI: Ju Ming Mei Shu Guan
The Juming Museum is Taiwan's only outdoor sculpture museum. Located in the lush green mountains, the museum houses the life work of Ju Ming, one of Taiwan's most famous contemporary artists. The museum presents Ju Ming's creative work from 1987 to 1999, and Ju himself was heavily involved in planning and constructing this museum. After being exhibited in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris and Luxembourg, Ju's works were shipped back to Taiwan ato be displayed in this incredible outdoor setting.
As you can see from the map, the grounds are spacious, and the gorgeousness of the natural scenery, far from detracting from the art on display, really did work to form a synergistic whole in which the beauty of the sculpture was enhanced by the natural setting just as the art lent glamour and excitement to the already lovely scenery. This trip was one of the most unforgettable, treasured experiences of time time in Taiwan, and I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to go with Kevin, his parents, his sisters, Li-bei (his uncle), and A-ma.
We began our stroll through the museum in one of the indoor exhibition areas, where giant multi-media murals from Ju Ming's "Living World" series decorated the white walls. I just loved these murals, and was lucky to have Mrs. Jwo to explain what was written in Chinese!
There were also a number of works by other famous artists -- like Picasso, Dali, and (obviously) Warhol -- on display as well, which we looked at before heading back outside to the blazing sun to experience the art outdoors.
The works by Ju Ming seemed to fit generally into three categories: the "Living World" series, the "Tai Chi" series, and the "Living World: Armed Forces" series. I loved all the sculptures, but especially the Tai Chi ones, which were massive bronze statues which seemed to move in the graceful arcs of Tai Chi or Kung Fu as you walked past them or simply stood and gazed.
This wasn't even one of the biggest ones!
The "Living World: Armed Forces" pieces were really neat as well, and probably composed the largest part of the park by volume. They were Ju Ming's most recent work and (according to one of the placards) the ones he considered his finest works. The military has a large presence in the public mind on Taiwan, not simply because of the ever-present threat of attack from mainland China if they overstep their ill-defined political boundaries, but also because service is compulsory for all male citizens.
Of course, there were many, many other works of art which did not seem to fit into these three main categories. There was a pond (you can see it, and get a good sense of the scale of the park, on the map) surrounded by sculptures and also featuring sculptures inside -- of graceful white swans which looked real from far away. The neatest thing about the pond was its total inversion of ordinary expectations... not only were the white swans fake, but the real swans in the pond were actually black!
I took a few pictures of the black swans up close for my dad.
One of the other cool sculptures we saw was a statue of Buddha which was composed of many smaller, identical Buddhas of varying scale (it was almost like fractal art), as seen in the picture below. Please click on it (as you can click on any of the pictures on this page!) for a better view of all the minute details.
Leaving the pond area, we wound our way down a path on the side of the mountain, where more sculptures -- some by other artists -- were displayed.
One that I especially liked (pictured above) was a very simple, linear sort of sculpture, which is a lot bigger than it seems in the photo since my umbrella obscures most of the landscape that could better display its scale. I liked this piece of art not so much for its appearance itself (although it was quite nice), but rather for its concept, which was beautifully expressed in a little placard on the ground near the base of the statue. Here is what he wrote: "I would rather say it is a poem or a painting with blue sky and green land as its background than a sculpture. Because I am only passing by here and leaving several lines in the sky. Is it a person or a cloud? People may leave and clouds may drift away, maybe they will return somehow, or I may not pass through here again, just like you may not be back again."
Shortly after passing this sculpture, we rounded a corner in the path and found ourselves bordered on either side by stone walls on which a number of different murals, of all different styles and subject matters had been painted. We even met a few people in the very act of painting -- they were students from an art and engineering college in Taipei, I think -- as part of a competition that is apparently held every year on these walls.
We passed some pretty interesting conceptual sculpture art (like the zipper stuff above), but by far the strangest were the "visiting exhibitions" by other artists who had apparently won some kind of art contest to have their work exhibited here. These sculptures were indoors, providing a welcome respite from the blazing heat outside. The first few rooms we walked through contained giant kaleidoscopes filled with everyday objects (like lipstick) and pictures, and the last contained two giant hamster wheels, one of which had a picture of a man walking in it. The other was meant for our use (so I guess you could say this was experiential as well as conceptual art). Camille jumped on and tried valiantly to get the giant wheel turning.
Before long, Kevin hopped in and got things going at a high speed. It was great fun for everyone there, and we trooped back out into the hot, humid air feeling refreshed.
As the air grew more and more oppressive, I suggested a group photo, the results of which you see below. I forget whose idea it was to strike the pose of the statue behind us, but I think it was brilliant!
Just a few minutes after this photo was taken, a big fat raindrop fell down onto my head. Plop. went another one at my feet. Plop. Plop. Plop-plop-plop-plop--whoosh! and the heavens opened up.
With cries of "台風!" ("Typhoon!") we all dashed down the gravel path into the first building we could find, which turned out to be a kind of game/interactive art exbhibit. Here, plain white T-shirts hung behind bulls-eyes strung with paint-filled balloons. For a fee, visitors could shoot plastic pellets at the bulls-eye with a BB-gun, creating "wearable" art. With nothing better to do in this small space, we decided to spring for a shirt and received a gun and safety glasses.
Camille went first, firing one shot after another at the target, trying to get a sense of the gun's trajectory. Shot after shot was fired, to no avail. Finally, Camille passed the gun to her father. Kevin's dad took up the gun and glasses and took aim with the practiced stance of a soldier (as, indeed, he once was). Although I'm sure his aim was better, the target proved unusually difficult to touch. The balloons sat there, bulging with paint, begging to be popped. It was Kevin's turn.
He put on the glasses, stepped up to the line, and took aim. Bang! A balloon splattered blue paint all over the shirt. Bang! Purple paint this time. Other people took aim, though no one else connected, and eventually the gun ran out of pellets. The assistant walked over to the ballons with a pin and popped the rest of them before presenting us with our new "art" just as the last raindrops fell and the clouds began to lift.
After that, the air was much cooler, and we toured more of the grounds before finally returning indoors to join A-ma for lunch. We were all quite hungry after so much touring and art appreciation, and the restaurant at the museum was excellent. Bellies full, we took one last glance around the grounds and then piled back into our cars for the scenic drive back to Taipei.
posted by Kelly @ 3:36 PM
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