Sculpture

Length:54.8 x Width:46.6 x Height:109.5 (cm)

Accession Number：20220200021

Chen Ting-Shih (1913-2002, Changle, Fujian) was born into a literary family and trained from a young age in calligraphy, painting, and seal carving. During wartime upheaval in his youth, he adopted the pen name “Erh Shih” and produced hand-carved woodblock illustrations, which were printed directly onto publications. After relocating to Taiwan, Chen transitioned to modern printmaking and became a key figure in Taiwan’s contemporary art movement. He represented Taiwan in numerous international biennials and received first prize at the 1970 Korea International Print Biennale for his print Hibernation. In 1958, Chen co-founded the Modern Print Association with Lee Shi-Chi and Chiang Han-Tong, and actively participated in artist groups such as the Fifth Moon Group and the Modern Eye Art Society. In his later years, he turned to collecting scholar’s rocks and creating welded iron sculptures. His iconic piece Johnnie Walker was featured in the volume Masters of Iron and Space, securing his place in the global history of twentieth-century sculpture. Chen’s sculptures were typically assembled from discarded industrial materials, such as shipbreaking scrap metal, turbine blades, broken household items, and fragments of antique folk objects. Through cutting and welding, he transformed these rusted remnants into softened, abstract forms. The marks of age and use were not erased but recontextualized, becoming new visual symbols imbued with fresh life and aesthetic meaning.
Work No.371 is constructed from cast iron and discarded industrial components. The cast iron has been re-forged and distorted by the artist into an irregular form, marked by flowing, organic curves. Despite a life lived without sound, Chen Ting-Shih found inspiration through silence, expressing vast ideas with elemental forms. In this work, the raw material evokes both the vastness of the cosmos and the pulse of living energy. The oxidized metal surface and twisted structure suggest the passage of time, while the sculpture as a whole brings together the tangible and the abstract in a unified visual language.