











Opening
2018.3.31 14:30
Venue
Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Art
The Poetics of Space:International Conference on Lee Kuang-Yu’s Art of Sculpture
Date:2018.04.01 10:00-17:00
Venue:Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts lecture hall
Space, Poetry and People: Art of Lee Kuang-yu
Reminiscence of Neiwei
Lee Kuang-yu was born in Neiwei, Kaohsiung in Taiwan in 1954. After he completed his academic training in sculpture in Taiwan in 1975, he went to Spain and studied the Western techniques and theories of sculpture in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando and the Art College of Universidad Complutense de Madrid, learning from renowned Western sculptors such as Toledo. After graduation, he returned to Taiwan in 1983 and, next year, started to teach first at Taipei National University of the Arts and then at National Taiwan University of Arts. After he retired from his teaching position in 2006, he became a full-time sculpture artist and led a hermit-like life. He built his own sculpture park and studio in a mountain woodland in Xizhi of Taipei. By combining both Eastern and Western media, techniques, philosophical thoughts as well as what he learned at school and from life, Li has created his own rhetoric of art that crosses the boundaries of Eastern and Western cultures, a kind of art as rich and diverse as the nature of Taiwan’s arts and cultures.
This exhibition showcases totally 50 sets of works created by Lee from 1986 to 2017. The curator, Tseng Yao-sheng, attempts to present to viewers the poetry and passion in Lee’s life as an artist from the three perspectives of “space, poetry and people”. Especially placed by the curator at the entrance of the gallery room, the Goddess of the Earthly Creations sculpture, which symbolizes compassion to every being in the universe, welcomes viewers to the exhibition, followed by Visiting Spring, a sculpture that represents the jubilant bustle of youth in the month of March. Then the Majesty sculpture marks the beginning of adulthood in which one starts to seek wisdom and truth. This sculpture portrays Manjusri Bodhisattva, Buddha of Wisdom, in his wrathful form (also known as Yamantaka) cracking down on the evil and protecting the good to promote wisdom and reason among mortals. The Bullfighting series is one of the highlights of this exhibition. This series of large-scale sculptures was created by Lee in 2016 for an exhibition in the former residence of Hemingway in Venice. Drawing references from Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon, Lee imagined how a cool-headed bullfighter still managed to compose himself elegantly in the face of death and performed a tantalizing duet dance with it. Lee converted the bullfighter a ballerina in his series. In front of these sculptures, such as Grenada and Red Passion, the only thing we as viewers can do is to let them take our breath away as if we are watching one fascinating ballet performance after another.
When Lee was a teacher, he never ceased his artistic creation and, during this period of time, he attempted to infuse modern forms and aesthetics traditional sculptures. For example, he gave exaggerative twists to sculptures of large volume in order to create a strong sense of tension while easing the sense of repression caused by the large size. In addition, he intentionally added a hand-kneaded texture to the smooth surface of his sculptures. This oscillation between and merge of the East and West is a constant feature of his works. In addition, Lee also paid particular attention to the correlations between traditional sculptures and external spaces. In 2008, Lee demonstrated a brand-new artistic expression language in his Goddess of the Earthly Creations, in which the form of the goddess fully demonstrates Lee’s acute observation of human body and outstanding command of representation techniques, using light and thin metal sheets to precisely represent human anatomy. This work is practically the prototype of Lee’s recent works in which metal sheets are used to simulate Chinese calligraphy brush strokes. The heavy and realistic depiction of a creature in the lower half of this work constitutes a stable center of gravity. The contrast of lightness and heaviness, abstractionism and realism between the upper and lower halves of this sculpture is the beginning of Lee’s transition from heaviness to lightness and his signature flow of both voidness and solidness in his sculptures.
This development has also converted Lee’s earlier focus on the dialogue between his works and external spaces to his recent focus on the correlations between voidness and solidness of the sculptures. For example, The Naughty Boy in 2008 still features chiseled lines like in a hard-pen painting. In later works, such as Majesty and the Bullfighting series, Lee starts to incorporate flowing lines and void spaces that resemble Chinese calligraphy with strong and weak, dense and loose, solid and void brush strokes merged together and dotted with moss-like ink spots to create a balanced harmony. The development of these new techniques reflects the influence of Chinese calligraphy and painting artists such as Huang Kuang-nan on Lee when he was young back in his hometown. Lee experiments with a diverse range of materials and does not impose any presumed shape or concept on his works. Nor does he seek any certain pattern or any absolute existence; therefore, he is able to find an abstract territory of absolute poeticness.
In contrast to traditional sculptures that always wait quietly to be viewed, Lee’s sculptures continuously send messages and energy to viewers, buzzing their ears like those singing birds and insects by the lotus pond in Neiweipi. The “Reminiscence of Neiwei” is an expression of Lee’s sentiments toward his hometown when returning to it and having his exhibition here. Now in his sixties, Lee has transcended all the fluctuations of happiness and sadness in life, looking back at his life mostly spent outside his hometown studying, teaching and engaging in artistic creation. Over all these years, the place he settled down has felt like his new hometown to him. What connects him and his original hometown is his desire for tranquility away from the urban hustle and bustle, his moment of solitude hiding in the air-raid shelter during childhood, and his discovery of a lively world underneath the lotus leaves. All these incidents and sentiments are recorded and represented in his sculptures such as Lotus, Girls on a Lotus Leaf, and Shadow of Wind.
By Tseng Mei-chen (Senior Researcher of Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts)