真善美畫廊將於5月份推出精心策畫的《浮生－朱銘人間系列木浮雕展》，展出朱銘的大型木浮雕、方正人間與白彩木雕等人間系列的精彩作品。人間系列發軔於1980年代，抱持著對藝術之都的嚮往，朱銘前往紐約探尋藝術的最新發展，並將所感受到的自由精神實踐在作品上，從而開啟他至今仍然創作不輟的人間系列。如同這個新系列的命名，人間系列以人生百態、眾生形貌為刻劃對象，不論男女老少，也沒有階級、地域的分別，朱銘一一捕捉住他們日常的樸實樣貌，並讓個別雕像結群成眾而發展為龐大的群像，往往隨著主題的不同，展現出超越世俗或者返回世俗的強大精神性。
其中，木浮雕和方正人間正是人間系列的開端，這二個子系列始於前述朱銘短暫居留於紐約的期間，在結束穿梭於畫廊與博物館的日子後，朱銘回到自己的工作室，使用難得取得的木料，先是刻出一尊尊的小型人像雕塑，再將它們集結成大型的雕塑作品；木浮雕是由單尊小木雕不分上下四方的排列，再釘在木板上集合而成作品，遠觀呈現出鳥瞰城市街道般的視角，而木雕塊面的高低落差與紋樣賦彩則形成了特殊的韻律和節奏，然而進一步趨前看，卻可以發現他們是擁有各自神態，一個簇擁著一個的小雕像，因而產生了一種目不暇給的視覺感受。方正人間則是由尺寸略大，樣貌較為均質的小雕像組成，首先將它們並置堆疊為三個尺寸相近的立方量體，再等距落地放置或堆高成超過3公尺的大型雕塑；這種從組成單元到結構方式的雙重均質，讓作品益發純粹而呈現為概念，反映出一種對於眾的抽象思考。白彩木雕則再次將觀者的視線拉回，重新聚焦在個別雕塑之上，朱銘順應著每塊木料的特徵，俐落下刀讓塊面銜接成形體，並在面部刻劃淺痕勾勒出神情，而後上彩賦予氣韻；然而這些雕像並非指向特定的人，而是浮現出某些更為廣泛的神態，讓觀者得以自其中重新看見了眾。
是以，藉由木浮雕、方正人間與白彩木雕的共同展出，《浮生－朱銘人間系列木浮雕展》呈現出三種對於眾的不同觀看，首先由群體看到了個體，再抽離個體昇華為概念上的眾，而再自個體重新返回了眾，它們存在著相互的辯證與回應，亦反映出藝術家對於人間這個課題的諸多思索；本次展出的作品，都是2016年後的新創作，其中三組木浮雕更是在今年重新上彩賦予新色，展覽自5/8至7/10，歡迎所有喜愛朱銘大師的朋友們前來共同探索。


The Living World - JU MING Living World Series- Wooden Embossment
Artist: Ju Ming
Date: 5/8-7/10
Elaborately organized by the Kalos Gallery, “The Living World - JU MING Living World Series- Wooden Embossment” is a major art event scheduled to open this May. It features Ju Ming’s brilliant sculptural subseries in his Living World Series, including Wooden Embossment, Human Cube, and Wooden Sculpture. Driven by his passionate yearning for New York, Ju Ming went to this art capital for the latest development of art in the 1980s and embarked on his Living World Series ever since, in which the spirit of freedom he experienced there finds expression. Just as its title implies, this series vividly portrays the human comedy and the appearance of sentient beings regardless of their gender, age, class, and region. Ju Ming perfectly captures their quotidian simplicity and assembles these individual statues into a large group, thereby demonstrating the powerful spirituality of either transcendence or secularity with the thematic variation.
Ju Ming’s Living World Series started from Wooden Embossment and Human Cube. The two subseries were created during his aforementioned short stay in New York. After visiting galleries and museums, he went back to his atelier, where he carved many small human figures out of rare lumber and turned them into large-scale sculptures by grouping them together. Wooden Embossment comprises small statues nailed on a wood slab and arranged horizontally and vertically in a random manner. It’s strongly reminiscent of a bird’s eye view of urban streets, whilst the differences among these blocks in height, pattern, and color ooze a particularly rhythmic charm. Taking a closer look, we will find that they are clusters of small statues with varying appearance, which is nothing short of a feast for the eyes. Human Cube consists of small statues that are larger in size and more homogeneous in appearance than those in the relief. Ju Ming firstly combined these statues into three cubes similar in size. Then he either placed them at equal intervals or piled them up as a large-scale sculpture over 3 m in height. The constituent and structural homogeneity renders his works so pure as concepts, reflecting his abstract thinking on the multitude. Wooden Sculpture redirects the viewers’ focus back onto individual sculptures. In tune with the attributes of each chunk of lumber, Ju Ming carved the lumber with crisp cuts and connected the blocks into shapes. Then he outlined the facial expression with shallow cuts and animated the sculptures with colors. These statues refer not so much to specific figures as to more general miens, in which the viewers may rediscover the multitude.
By the simultaneous display of Wooden Embossment, Human Cube, and Wooden Sculpture, “The Living World - JU MING Living World Series- Wooden Embossment” embodies three different perspectives of the multitude. It firstly shows individuals in groups, followed by the sublimation of individuals as the conceptual multitude, and finally returns to the real multitude from individuals. The three perspectives stand in a dialectical and mutually responsive relationship to one another, which mirrors the artist’s profound cogitation on the living world. All the exhibits this time are created after 2016, among which three sets of wooden embossment are even newly colored this year. This exhibition will be on view from 8 May to 10 July 2021. We cordially invite all fans of Ju Ming’s oeuvre to wander in his fantastic world of sculpture.