Imitate & amp; Summon-Box Containing Lamb

Exhibition Description

To promote art education for children, Juming Museum launches the “Artists-Searching for Creative Materials” exhibition from April 18 to August 23, in 2009. The exhibition presents the theme of “material conversion,” inviting individuals to plan constructive spaces for interaction and exploration in designated studios for children to discover how sculptural artists consider creative materials. During the exhibition, the museum also organizes related educational activities that emphasize exploration, promoting the concept of sculpture and fulfilling the museum’s social function and purpose of education.

Therefore, the purpose of this exhibition is to promote artistic thinking and content of sculpture: how works can be displayed in the setting of an artist’s studio to present contents that echo with audience, guiding children to explore the various dimensions of how artists choose and convert “materials” in the creative process and their experimental spirit. Thus, I use the famous French novel, The Little Prince, as the theme of the works. It is a mythical theme, which is converted into pictorial language—that is, a language in the structure of poetry, such as angel, airplane, snake, lamb, rose, and planet; the shapes dialogue with each other, as I try to bring viewers completely into their own fantasy space deep down within through the schematic structure of symbols, while also expanding the dialogues between works into a comprehensive state of subjective interpretation, in order to interpret mankind’s lifestyle and suggest a consciousness of an existential value system to reawake men’s existing spirit and values for the construction of a broader and macroscopic spiritual vision.

Thus, within the given space, which is 720 centimeters long, 360 centimeters wide, and 254 centimeters tall, I select the most industrial material at the moment, stainless steel, as the key interpretive vocabulary, which is also my long-term research topic in terms of materials. The walls around the venue and the ceiling are all lined with stainless steel mirrors, and all the exhibits displayed are made of stainless steel. The reflective physical nature of stainless steel gives the entire venue a consistent and homogenous material vocabulary, enhancing the endlessly layered and extended virtual state of the space. A white inflatable cushion made specially for the exhibition is placed on the floor; the bed-like shape echoes the projected video of real clouds on the ceiling; as the clouds constantly move, it also seems like the person is walking on clouds. The mirror surface creates a illuminating effect, coupled with the atmosphere created through different colors of light, the cold and hard stainless steel material is given warmth; the theatrical space that gives people endless imaginations like a kaleidoscope displays a spatial interface that absorbs all the beings in the universe, becoming a place that carries real sceneries. The changing light of the projector drives the flow of time, further presenting the self-reflection and refraction of these objects and expressing the phenomenon of stretched space within the vast universe. When audience walk into this site of smooth objects in different sizes constantly spreading outwardly, their own images will also be displayed in the scenery they are seeing. When audience step onto the inflatable cushion-lined floor, they will perceive the physical experience suggested by the physical properties of the material. When the body mass and the soft inflatable cushion react to one another, they are no longer walking in a way taken for granted, showing the changes and existences of the audience’s physical dynamic energy—that is, because of instability, and difficulty to achieve balance, most visitors, especially children, will kneel or lie down, or even roll around. In general, it is a fantasy-like spatial situation, where self is projected onto objects of varied sizes; at the same time, the image of self has become a part of the work. Thus, the spatial subjectivity created by this material property invites audience to enter a fantasy-like real sculptural space and atmosphere, as if they have entered a surreal space of paradise on earth, but can still perceive the existence of the real colorful world. For the creation of the works, I try to connect with the given space through construction and extension of spatial site, interpretation of material language, and pictorial expression, and interaction with audience, demonstrating a totem-like cosmological view of the spirit of human civilization, while also performing a proactive task of social education.