Sculpture, Boxing and Cultural Exchange

Abstract

Last year the Office of Cultural Exchange of the Department of State, in response to a proposal which I had filed, sent me on a trip to Asia. I was gone for about four and a half months, visiting Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, and Burma. The programs that I conducted were unusual but not incongruous. In each country I gave demonstration-explanations of the sculpture process, the “why” and “how” of a piece of sculpture, using local personalities as models. In the same localities, but at different times—since I am not a magician—I conducted clinics in boxing for groups composed of teachers, coaches, and students. In addition, I exhibited twenty small sculptures of American personalities such as Jesse Owens—an athlete; Huddie Ledbetter—a folksinger; and Robert Frost—a poet (the order is purely coincidental): personalities who, despite difficulties and even deep traditional social injustices, became important in their fields, and in doing so helped to wear down and even eradicate some of those difficulties and injustices. Incompletely described the plan for the trip may seem “over-composed,” but I assure you that it was no more peredictable than an unfixed prize fight—but less brutal.