The statue of Bruce Lee in the Hong Kong Heritage Museum

Abstract

Abstract This article presents an analysis of the most recent statue of Bruce Lee displayed in the entrance to the Bruce Lee exhibition at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. The analysis primarily utilizes O’Toole’s social semiotic framework as outlined in The language of displayed art (1994, 2011) in the tradition of systemic functional linguistics for analyzing the multimodality of sculpture, and provides insights into how the statue represents the kung fu legend Bruce Lee, who created the martial arts discipline of Jeet June Do. The article begins by first analyzing its sculptural features and then interprets these features against the sociocultural context of the city. The paper argues that the cultural background for the representation of Lee in the statue with its unique representational, modal, and compositional features testifies that meanings attributed to visual information in sculpture are to a large degree socially structured and culturally bound. It shows that the location of the statue and its features such as its gaze and torso can be better understood with reference to the political and cultural significance of Lee’s legacies, thereby enhancing our understanding of the social semiotic nature of statues as a means of commemoration- and a significant part of our cultural heritage.