Fang Wu

Organised by Juming Museum, Fang Wu—Asian Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition has its grand opening today (Sept 13) and will be on display until January 12, 2025. Co-curated by Liu Chu-Lan (Taiwan) and Choi Tae Man (South Korea), the exhibition features 20 artists from across Asia, including Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, China, and Hong Kong. Fang Wu focuses on the concept of matters and explores the different meanings of material from the past, as well as the latent revelations and new perspectives they may offer.

Founded by the important Taiwanese sculptor Ju Ming (1938–2023), the Juming Museum is located in Jinshan, Taipei, Taiwan, occupying over 11 hectares. It stands as one of Taiwan's significant art institutions. Since its opening in 1999, the Museum has been dedicated to collecting, researching, and promoting sculpture art. Juming Museum states, “this exhibition is an important large-scale group exhibition that the museum has ever hosted, bringing together artists from the largest number of nationalities, signifying a milestone.”

Reflecting on the materials of sculpture from a “local” perspective
The Chinese term “Fāng Wù,” originating from ancient texts, initially referred to local products and carried connotations of description and identification. Drawing from this concept, the exhibition explores new perspectives on materials from a “local” standpoint, grounded in the principle of decentralisation. The heterogeneity, complexity, and dynamism of “locality”—encompassing natural resources, ecological environments, traditional knowledge, historical culture, and social life—open up multiple pathways for the in-depth exploration and practice of materials. This multifaceted perspective paves the way for the development of new artistic concepts.

Chinese artist Fu Zhong-Wang’s The Great Woodwork amalgamates numerous components from traditional wooden architecture, especially the “mortise and tenon” joint. This work challenges our understanding of the traditional wisdom and interrogates the past and present of material culture. Taiwanese artist Liu Po-Chun presents a 2024 new work, A Smelting World. Using iron as his primary creative medium, Liu reinterprets meteorites in this work, further extending his series of creations that dialogue with Taiwan's prehistoric iron-smelting civilisation. This work embodies humanity's minute existence whilst allegorically merging human and non-human worlds. Hong Kong artist So Wing Po, hailing from a family of traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, created Emission using the medicinal plant Burma creeper. Through this, So explores the intertextuality between humans and plants, suggesting the relativity and delicate balance within the survival systems of all living things.

The work Translated Vase by South Korean artist Yeesookyung uses the traditional Kintsu repair technique to fuse and reassemble the porcelain fragments with pure gold, exploring the possible resurrection and mutated development of cultural traditions. Seeping Forest by artist Kim Yujung, also from South Korea, presents rootless plants spreading across indoor walls, metaphorising the parasitic and dominant relationships between nature and humans. Indonesian artist Heri Dono’s Genetic Manipulation explores the potential impacts and risks that clones, cyborgs, and genetic modification pose to civilisation.

Curator Liu Chu Lan said, “the exhibition encourages a re-examination of materials, not merely viewing them as a medium or material, but as entities with their own agency. ‘Fang Wu’ seeks to deconstruct and re-examine the hierarchy and logic between humans and matters. Through this perspective, the exhibition aims to highlight the inherent relativity of all existences, and the unique ‘locality’ of Asia and the significance of ‘trans-locality’, thereby exploring a redefinition of the identity of Asian contemporary sculpture.”

Participating artists
Chan Shin-Tai (Taiwan), Chen Shu-yen (Taiwan), Heri Dono (Indonesia), Fu Zhong Wang (China), FX Harsono (Indonesia), Kim Dabal (South Korea), Kim Yujung (South Korea), Kishi Kaoru (Japan), Lee James Ming-Hsueh (Taiwan), Liu Po-Chun (Taiwan), Lo Yi-Chun (Taiwan), Ohmaki Shinji (Japan), Shin Meekyoung (South Korea), So Wing Po (Hong Kong), Sung Dong-Hun (South Korea), Torimitsu Momoyo (Japan), Yang Wei-Lin (Taiwan), Yeesookyung (South Korea), Pannaphan Yodmanee (Thailand), Yuon Kibaik (South Korea)