Ju Ming Museum

Ju Ming (朱銘) is a Taiwanese sculptor, who attained fame in Taiwan in the 1970s, and in New York in 1983. Ju Ming was trained as a woodcarver, apprenticed to Lee Chin-chuan, as a teenager. He developed his skill, and applied it to a range of media, including bronze, styrofoam, ceramics, and stainless steel. In 1976, Ju took up Tai Chi on Yang's advice to develop physical and mental discipline. He developed greatly from this practice and started thinking about sculpting works on the theme of Tai Chi, which had never been done before. Ju's solo exhibition occurred in March at the National Museum of History in Taipei thanks to Yang Yu-yu who convinced the museum authorities to show his student's pieces. It was highly successful and he was named as one of the Ten Outstanding Youths of 1976.


From 1980, Ju continued to gain international acclaim and exhibited abroad. He started The Living World "family" which he continues to expand. These bright figures are made of bronze, stainless steel, painted wood and foam rubber cast bronze, giving him freedom to depict the human form in all its varieties. Another is his "Living World" series, depicting figures drawn from a modern, westernised society. Much of Ju Ming's work is housed at the Juming Museum, just outside Taipei. The museum was built at the artist's expense, and is open to the public. He was awarded the 18th Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2007.


The 1980s and 1990s was when Ju Ming’s artistic creativity came to full fruition. His major productions, Taichi Series and Living World Series, were developed in parallel during this time. The Taichi Series gradually became deeper in its artistic vocabulary and spiritual realization. The practice of Taichi strives for "concentrated energy on the inside, calm and ease on the outside." Ju Ming speaks of "outer achievement through inner quality," which he further explains that, in art, means that "in a work that is harmonious and alive, the texture of each part should flow in a way that serves the work's inner energy and sense of motion in order to present an overall shape that possesses natural rhythm. This kind of vitality is transmitted when the inner qualities achieve outer effects."



In 2005, he presented “Living World Series - Armed Forces”, with more than 300 life-size military sculptures, to commemorate the battles of the wars and as a tribute to the modern day armed forces is a series of work which Ju Ming took four years to complete. The Armed Forces series is an obligation that Ju Ming takes up as part of the greater Living World Series. It documents a different side of living. escribing and communicating values through the symbols and metaphysical images of art, it breaks down the boundaries of different languages and words.



The importance of this series can be seen not only in the style of its artistic language but also in the elements of performance and installation art. Saluting these heroes is a very important concept in Ju Ming’s Armed Forces works, an admiration of images and values. The grand navy ship is the most significant work among all the navy pieces. Shaped by stainless steel by placing the Navy figures on the ship, this work presents the variation of the spatial capacity and the positive and negative spaces.