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In the past, production of sculptures in Taiwan was generally limited to wood, plaster, and concrete, and through the 1960s and ’70s works were largely poured or cast from “plastic” molds. In the 1980s and ’90s, better quality and more natural materials, such as stone, wood, and metals, started to gain wider use. From 1980, with the development of urban landscape sculpture, Taiwan’s public realm, architecture community, and sculpture community began discussing the topic of environment and sculpture, and with the passage of the Provisions on Culture and Arts Incentives in 1992 stone and metal became the most frequent materials of choice for sculptors. Both modern and durable, these materials became a new force in urban sculpture in Taiwan. Especially in Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s iron and steel capital, development of steel sculpture gained particular momentum.
The thinking behind the creation of urban culture and contemporary art endeavors to find unique visual language and develop its content and methods of _expression to reach people and involve them. Recognizing that “steel and Kaohsiung” could effectively form the basis for the city’s distinctive industrial culture, the Bureau of Cultural Affairs of Kaohsiung City Government held the first biennial “Kaohsiung International Steel & Iron Sculpture Festival” in 2002. This year’s series of events will be held under the theme “Welding Together•Crossing Over.” The Outdoor Steel & Iron Sculpture Exhibition, presented by the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, brings together large-scale outdoor sculpture works in iron and steel by artists such as early stainless steel adapter Ju Ming; artists working with welded iron such as Lin Liang-tsai and Tung Cheng-ping; Kao Tsan-hsing, who employs the effects of molten iron; Michell Hwang, whose works aspire to bring out the clean perfection of metal; the mixed media installations of A-sun Wu, Chang Sin-pi, and Lin Youn-jien; and Hung Lung-mu, who uses materials discarded from scrapped ships. In addition, the work of British sculptor Sarah Tombs is on loan from the collection of the ChiMeiMuseum in Tainan.
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I. Probing humanity and the soul
Ju Ming’s “Living World Series – Stainless Steel,” rendered in stainless steel, illuminates the individual’s search for a place to stand in life, conveying human emotions – from sadness to joy and confusion – in an abstract manner. Hsu Li-hsien, in his work “Station,” employs curved steel plates to cut out human forms, each of which is colored differently and combined together in movable devices. The work intends to show the relationship among family is inseparable, while space for individual activity has to be reserved.
Using focal _expression, Lin Liang-tsai employs hammered copper for the work “Sturdy Hand” to depict a pair of tough, resolute, unyielding, weathered, wisdom-filled, dynamic hands, representing the promise to God to forge the true value of human life with one’s own hands, will, and determination. The profound feeling for life expressed by the artist, who is both deaf and dumb, demonstrates all the more the value of his art and its capacity for touching enlightened souls, particularly in light of his physical circumstances.
In “Mankind on the March,” a work constructed from steel and colored acrylic, artist A-sun Wu combines color from conventional two-dimensional art with three-dimensional images, transforming figurative forms into abstract and spare lines – where primal and modern, the beauty of depth with flatness, make it a remarkable work of brilliant modern art.
In “Dancer,” British sculptor Sarah Tombs expresses soft, feathery dance through thick and solid steel, with intertwining, snaking soldered lines evoking the layered qualities of a skirt and tying the entire figure together. Kneeling, the “dancer” leans back, head and abdomen stretched out in a move typical for modern or street dancers, striking a pose frozen in transition.
II. Contemplating nature and the environment
A sense of the impermanence of nature or the wearing away of the ecology seems to set artists to reflection. Hung Lung-mu’s inspiration for “Newborn,” a work conveying the permanence and ebb and flow of nature, came from a shipwreck, and the worn beauty the corroded hulk and the living creatures adhered to it tell the story of decades of neglect and decay under the sea.
The city’s evolution is a topic felt most directly by those living in the moment. Kao Tsan-hsing’s “Ecology #1” looks like a wooden scrap, but is actually constructed out of dismantled sheets of steel. The wooden scrap is like living plant life, standing imposingly, representing the constant cycle of life of species and even more aptly symbolizing Kaohsiung as the capital of iron and steel. Lin Youn-jien’s “Kaohsiung at Night” uses the negative space between two silhouetted human faces to describe the setting of a fine hour under the curtain of night at the LoveRiver.
Meanwhile, Chang Sin-pi’s “Catching Shadows,” which stresses the fusion of work, environment, and viewers, is a spiraling, semi-exposed iron installation sculpture. Viewers are free to enter the vortex and move through the intertwining webs to produce delusional artistic melodies fusing one’s own shadows with those of others… producing the sensation of materials grasping at shadows.
III. Extension of material and space
In the exploration of special structure, Tung Cheng-ping’s “Wind, Forest, Fire, Mountain” attempts to tie together different spaces via “penetration,” while rotation comes from normal falling out of orbit, yet turns the convoluted spheres into blocks to produce feelings of volume, weight, density, and space. As such, it seeks to release two dimensions into three dimensions, and from three dimensions to release two dimensions.
Exploring form and color, Michell Hwang’s two works in this exhibition both use full, graceful oblong shapes as their main outer form, simplifying bright colors into saturated single colors, and slightly sharpening both ends to a point. As such, the works gather an inner force amidst absolute purity, like a seed about to sprout.
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