額外資訊
Color | Black, Orange |
---|---|
Years | 1991-2010 |
Size | Medium |
LIU Xiaodong was born in 1963 in Jincheng, a town in the Liaoning Province in China. He moved in 1978 to Beijing and later graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
As other artists of his generation turn away from more traditional forms of painting, LIU continues to capture the realism of life and his technique has matured into "slack expressionism" where a sense of immediacy and familiarity permeates throughout his paintings, further accentuated by his disinterested interpretation of the subject matter; this familiarity becomes the basis of a dialogue between artist and viewer.
The affection he has for people is the starting point of his work, which gradually spreads into the field of social implication. The life of man and their body, the texture of air and objects are the few vital points of LIU's work.
He is on the constant search of the subtle gap that separates painting and other artistic forms, and he has found his answer in the sentimental demand of painting as a craftsmanship. LIU values painting as a movement. He says "the process of painting brings surely a body language, and this is what makes painting irreplaceable. It is coagulation rather than instantaneity that is at the core of painting."
Rather than some specific brush technique, it is the social environment and situations that make up the "Realistic" core of Liu's works. This realism is moving away from the social realism of the past- a movement that despite its name relied on an artificial setting of themes. LIU refrains from placing his models within his own subjective nostalgia; instead he locates them firmly in the breathless and ever-changing transformation of Chinese society.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
FILMOGRAPHY
AWARDS
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
By Yang Zhao
During a discussion with Li Xianting in 2003, Liu Xiaodong put forth his impression regarding Lucian Freud:
“I realize that his psychological state is completely different than mine…He is a ‘European’, fine with not having any friends, and able to just paint one thing for his entire life. Things are different in Chinese society, where it’s like a party whenever you leave the house, and those that enter your house are considered friends. We would also become more reflective and calm as we grow older. It is a matter of cultural differences, and I would not be able to paint as Freud does.”
These words demonstrate a typical characteristic found in Liu’s paintings: his subjects are always found in their social environment, and are by extension, ambassadors for that society. Although some people may view Liu’s and Freud’s works as similar to one another, there are vast differences between them that are obvious and un-ignorable. Freud’s portraits pull his subjects out of the society from which they’re from to showcase their independence and uniqueness. On the contrary, Liu’s subjects are always placed back into their social environments, and in some works, the shifting, indistinct social environments behind his figures are, in fact, the actual focus – the subjects are simply there to pull attention to that spot.
Liu created his New Eighteen Disciples of Buddha series for the “Bunker Museum of Contemporary Art—18 Solo Exhibitions” organized by Cai Guo-Qiang in 2007. His subjects were military personnel from both Taiwan and Mainland China. What was so intriguing about the series of paintings was the ease with which viewers had in distinguishing Taiwanese and Chinese soldiers without explanation.
This same level of visual accuracy can also been seen in Liu’s other paintings of Taiwan, including his Betelnut Girlseries, Not Far From Jiufen series, and his series of students from Tunghai University. Liu said:
“… those Taiwan paintings, I immediately fell in love when I arrived, the kids are so pure and simple, especially in comparison with those in the Mainland. They dress very fashionable, yet are very cultured and polite. They will look you straight in the eye, and have their own happiness and their own lives. They are quite different from youths in the Mainland.”
Li Xianting, on the same subject, also reflected:
“… those Taiwan paintings show the island’s youth as how I saw them. Although there are similarities to Mainland youth, there is still a very different feeling.”
Liu Xiaodong captured the essence of the Taiwanese youth in his paintings, which the audience, including Li Xianting, is able to identify. In other words, these subjects are not cut off as solitary figures, but instead were painted to evoke a strong sense of “Taiwanese-ness” within their audience.
Social environment and situations make up the “realistic” core of Liu’s works - not some specific brush technique. Paradoxically, this realism is moving away from the social realism of the past – a movement that despite its name, relied on an artificial setting of themes. Liu’s work clearly rejects this painting model where subjects are plucked out of their natural social environments.
Faced with this phony realism, Liu Xiaodong’s generation searched for a new language and way to describe truth and reality on canvas. Liu said, “ We no longer believe in creating an artificial world or landscape; the natural world is a wonderful thing, and I paint my surroundings in a natural manner.”
Liu’s “natural world” does not refer to a wilderness in which man has no presence, but a “reflection” of the world before him and thus a resistance against creating artificial environments. Liu’s style can be considered “natural” because it makes a point of placing the individual firmly back into the reality of daily life, as opposed to pulling him out of it. Within his or her social environment, the individual naturally exhibits a spectrum of moods and minds—from nervousness to relaxation—as a reflection of his or her relationship with society.
To avoid confusion, perhaps substituting the word “fullness” or “completeness” for “natural” would be proper here. Li Xiaodong grew up and studied to be an artist in the post-Cultural Revolution period, while Lucian Freud lived in a very different society that was highly urbanized and modern. Freud’s subjects strive to emerge from the background noise of their modern day surroundings, and, as they do so, their lonely alienation stands out in clear relief. For Freud, this is what it means to have painted a complete person. Liu’s paintings, on the other hand, want to return to a free flowing society through the artist’s subjective interference (“it’s like a party whenever you leave the house, and those that enter your house are considered friends”)—only then can the “fullness” or three dimensionality of the subject emerge.
The success of Liu lies in his ability to demonstrate this “fullness”, or three dimensionality, with the vocabulary of contemporary Chinese art. His artistic spirit resembles that of a documentary, where the relationship between the traditional social realism movement and Liu’s work is akin to the difference between a drama and documentary. The nature of serial dramas is to ignore elements that are not directly connected with the main plot and instead focus its energies on the main conflict at hand. Although dramas extract much material from real life, the recombination of the material taken from its original context cannot be anything but a fabrication. A documentary, however, is a different game. In the search for aesthetics, a documentary chooses a person or event and carefully ties it into its original context. The focus of documentary then slowly expands from the person or event in question, leading the audience in the discovery of an unfamiliar context and background. Suddenly the background and foreground (i.e. the subject and the context) change places and slowly fuse into one another.
At first glance, the protagonist of Liu’s newest series of paintings seems to be none other than himself; someone who left his hometown for the big, wide world and is now returning to visit his old classmates. After all, these former students were chosen to be Liu’s subjects precisely because they were his old classmates. This first impression, however, gradually fades and is replaced by another element.
This element in question is the passage of time. Although the subjects of Liu’s paintings were all originally Liu’s classmates, 30 years have now passed since they shared the same classroom. This series brings together middle-aged friends for what one could call a class reunion, and the passage of time is brought into sharp relief. On each face is etched various personal stories that, thirty years ago, no one would have expected facing. But at the same time, these stories are indefinable and ungraspable in relation to the dark and terrifying power of time; we can only hazard a guess at their existence by the congealed traces of the ravages of time left behind on each face we see.
The 30 years that Liu and his classmates have experienced were not an average period of time, but the beginning of a period of massive and rapid transformation. In his simple, yet accurate, treatment of his classmates, Liu refrains from placing them within his own subjective experience of the past, but instead locates them firmly in this breathless transformation of Chinese society. These former classmates become representatives of their social environment, and thus we are afforded an indescribable, yet clear look into modern day China.
This group of young men and women who grew up together in the village of Jincheng transforms into the different faces of Chinese society some 30 years later. As we are shown one figure after another, their images and stories become more intense, and we soon wish we could turn our eyes away. And, whether we want to entertain such thoughts or not, the entire series cannot help but remind us of the massive upheavals of the past 30 years and the devastating and destabilizing effect it had on those living at that time. It is this historical power which cannot be controlled or tamed, which far surpasses the individual and the scope of his or her life and thus, at best, can only be accepted in resignation. This is exactly what becomes the main visual focus of Liu’s paintings.
Liu Xiaodong has taken this group of former classmates and transformed them into a single metaphor. He uses them to document a ruthless era of savagery and destabilization that prefers to remain in the shadows and unexpressed. The paintings of Liu, in their documentary spirit, will also echo the movie Hometown Boy produced by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, and the intertexuality of the two will constitute an ingenious relationship.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
FILMOGRAPHY
AWARDS
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
By Yang Zhao
During a discussion with Li Xianting in 2003, Liu Xiaodong put forth his impression regarding Lucian Freud:
“I realize that his psychological state is completely different than mine…He is a ‘European’, fine with not having any friends, and able to just paint one thing for his entire life. Things are different in Chinese society, where it’s like a party whenever you leave the house, and those that enter your house are considered friends. We would also become more reflective and calm as we grow older. It is a matter of cultural differences, and I would not be able to paint as Freud does.”
These words demonstrate a typical characteristic found in Liu’s paintings: his subjects are always found in their social environment, and are by extension, ambassadors for that society. Although some people may view Liu’s and Freud’s works as similar to one another, there are vast differences between them that are obvious and un-ignorable. Freud’s portraits pull his subjects out of the society from which they’re from to showcase their independence and uniqueness. On the contrary, Liu’s subjects are always placed back into their social environments, and in some works, the shifting, indistinct social environments behind his figures are, in fact, the actual focus – the subjects are simply there to pull attention to that spot.
Liu created his New Eighteen Disciples of Buddha series for the “Bunker Museum of Contemporary Art—18 Solo Exhibitions” organized by Cai Guo-Qiang in 2007. His subjects were military personnel from both Taiwan and Mainland China. What was so intriguing about the series of paintings was the ease with which viewers had in distinguishing Taiwanese and Chinese soldiers without explanation.
This same level of visual accuracy can also been seen in Liu’s other paintings of Taiwan, including his Betelnut Girlseries, Not Far From Jiufen series, and his series of students from Tunghai University. Liu said:
“… those Taiwan paintings, I immediately fell in love when I arrived, the kids are so pure and simple, especially in comparison with those in the Mainland. They dress very fashionable, yet are very cultured and polite. They will look you straight in the eye, and have their own happiness and their own lives. They are quite different from youths in the Mainland.”
Li Xianting, on the same subject, also reflected:
“… those Taiwan paintings show the island’s youth as how I saw them. Although there are similarities to Mainland youth, there is still a very different feeling.”
Liu Xiaodong captured the essence of the Taiwanese youth in his paintings, which the audience, including Li Xianting, is able to identify. In other words, these subjects are not cut off as solitary figures, but instead were painted to evoke a strong sense of “Taiwanese-ness” within their audience.
Social environment and situations make up the “realistic” core of Liu’s works - not some specific brush technique. Paradoxically, this realism is moving away from the social realism of the past – a movement that despite its name, relied on an artificial setting of themes. Liu’s work clearly rejects this painting model where subjects are plucked out of their natural social environments.
Faced with this phony realism, Liu Xiaodong’s generation searched for a new language and way to describe truth and reality on canvas. Liu said, “ We no longer believe in creating an artificial world or landscape; the natural world is a wonderful thing, and I paint my surroundings in a natural manner.”
Liu’s “natural world” does not refer to a wilderness in which man has no presence, but a “reflection” of the world before him and thus a resistance against creating artificial environments. Liu’s style can be considered “natural” because it makes a point of placing the individual firmly back into the reality of daily life, as opposed to pulling him out of it. Within his or her social environment, the individual naturally exhibits a spectrum of moods and minds—from nervousness to relaxation—as a reflection of his or her relationship with society.
To avoid confusion, perhaps substituting the word “fullness” or “completeness” for “natural” would be proper here. Li Xiaodong grew up and studied to be an artist in the post-Cultural Revolution period, while Lucian Freud lived in a very different society that was highly urbanized and modern. Freud’s subjects strive to emerge from the background noise of their modern day surroundings, and, as they do so, their lonely alienation stands out in clear relief. For Freud, this is what it means to have painted a complete person. Liu’s paintings, on the other hand, want to return to a free flowing society through the artist’s subjective interference (“it’s like a party whenever you leave the house, and those that enter your house are considered friends”)—only then can the “fullness” or three dimensionality of the subject emerge.
The success of Liu lies in his ability to demonstrate this “fullness”, or three dimensionality, with the vocabulary of contemporary Chinese art. His artistic spirit resembles that of a documentary, where the relationship between the traditional social realism movement and Liu’s work is akin to the difference between a drama and documentary. The nature of serial dramas is to ignore elements that are not directly connected with the main plot and instead focus its energies on the main conflict at hand. Although dramas extract much material from real life, the recombination of the material taken from its original context cannot be anything but a fabrication. A documentary, however, is a different game. In the search for aesthetics, a documentary chooses a person or event and carefully ties it into its original context. The focus of documentary then slowly expands from the person or event in question, leading the audience in the discovery of an unfamiliar context and background. Suddenly the background and foreground (i.e. the subject and the context) change places and slowly fuse into one another.
At first glance, the protagonist of Liu’s newest series of paintings seems to be none other than himself; someone who left his hometown for the big, wide world and is now returning to visit his old classmates. After all, these former students were chosen to be Liu’s subjects precisely because they were his old classmates. This first impression, however, gradually fades and is replaced by another element.
This element in question is the passage of time. Although the subjects of Liu’s paintings were all originally Liu’s classmates, 30 years have now passed since they shared the same classroom. This series brings together middle-aged friends for what one could call a class reunion, and the passage of time is brought into sharp relief. On each face is etched various personal stories that, thirty years ago, no one would have expected facing. But at the same time, these stories are indefinable and ungraspable in relation to the dark and terrifying power of time; we can only hazard a guess at their existence by the congealed traces of the ravages of time left behind on each face we see.
The 30 years that Liu and his classmates have experienced were not an average period of time, but the beginning of a period of massive and rapid transformation. In his simple, yet accurate, treatment of his classmates, Liu refrains from placing them within his own subjective experience of the past, but instead locates them firmly in this breathless transformation of Chinese society. These former classmates become representatives of their social environment, and thus we are afforded an indescribable, yet clear look into modern day China.
This group of young men and women who grew up together in the village of Jincheng transforms into the different faces of Chinese society some 30 years later. As we are shown one figure after another, their images and stories become more intense, and we soon wish we could turn our eyes away. And, whether we want to entertain such thoughts or not, the entire series cannot help but remind us of the massive upheavals of the past 30 years and the devastating and destabilizing effect it had on those living at that time. It is this historical power which cannot be controlled or tamed, which far surpasses the individual and the scope of his or her life and thus, at best, can only be accepted in resignation. This is exactly what becomes the main visual focus of Liu’s paintings.
Liu Xiaodong has taken this group of former classmates and transformed them into a single metaphor. He uses them to document a ruthless era of savagery and destabilization that prefers to remain in the shadows and unexpressed. The paintings of Liu, in their documentary spirit, will also echo the movie Hometown Boy produced by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, and the intertexuality of the two will constitute an ingenious relationship.
Color | Black, Orange |
---|---|
Years | 1991-2010 |
Size | Medium |
"" 前往願望清單