Beijing News (reporter Liu Zhen) On January 15, artist Liu Xiaodong's solo exhibition "Liu Xiaodong: Your Friend" was officially opened at the UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. The exhibition was first exhibited at UCCA Edge shanghai in 2021, and some of the new works constitute the main body of the Beijing tour, focusing on Liu Xiaodong's "Your Friends" series created by Liu Xiaodong's return to China in the early stage of the epidemic in 2020, as well as related creative manuscripts, diaries and newly filmed documentaries, focusing on the artist's creative practice in recent years. This touring exhibition is also the second solo exhibition held by Liu Xiaodong at UCCA in Beijing after the 2010 solo exhibition "Golden City Kid". "Liu Xiaodong: Your Friend" is co-curated by UCCA Curator Feiyu Tian and UCCA Curator Dialect.
Liu Xiaodong, "Old Mother (Black Ink)", 2021, Ink on Paper, 31 × 31 cm. Images courtesy of the artist's studio
As a pioneer of Chinese neorealist painting, Liu Xiaodong emerged in the 1990s, and with his sensitivity and insight into the development pains of the times, he vividly and clearly portrayed the changes of the times in China entering a new era. Since the beginning of 2000, from the Three Gorges Dam to the Texas-Mexico border under Trump, Liu Xiaodong has expanded his artistic practice, creating in areas full of narrative and even geopolitical significance, recording the social realities staged with a paintbrush.
In 2020, Liu Xiaodong was trapped in New York due to the outbreak of the epidemic, and after returning to China after a month-long separation from his friends' family, he immediately set out to create a new "Your Friends" series, which was completed in the early summer of 2021. In this series of works, Liu Xiaodong has a deeper understanding of the nature of the interconnection of life, turning his creative eyes to the relatives who are most closely related in his life, as well as the close friends who have intersected with his artistic creation, and begin to think about what these most special intimate relationships mean to him, the growth experienced in decades of interaction, and the aging and death that will eventually come, how long can such a cherished friendship last.
Liu Xiaodong, "Brother Drinking Tea", 2021, watercolor on paper, 34 × 25.5 cm. Images courtesy of the artist's studio
The "Your Friends" series originated from a self-portrait created by Liu Xiaodong during the Lunar New Year in January 2020. The self-portrait is set against the backdrop of the grove in his hometown of Heitu Village, Liaoning Province, where his father is buried. This small village with fifty families is not far from Jincheng, a paper-making town where Liu Xiaodong grew up, and the farm yard he and his brother built makes it full of memories and joy. This rugged northeastern farmhouse has become a foothold for family reunions, and the whole family sits around kangtou and cooks on the fire. In the opening work of this series, Liu Xiaodong is naked, crouching like a tiger on the snow in the cold winter, primitively close to the land where he raised himself, naked and facing his body. This submissive gesture of nature and the environment, and the acceptance of the inevitable passing, is at the heart of this group of works.
Liu Xiaodong, Acheng, 2020, oil on canvas, 270 × 230 cm. Images courtesy of the artist's studio
This exhibition presents the most intimate people portrayed by Liu Xiaodong with his trademark keen perception and creative approach. Among them are his best friends in Beijing for more than 30 years: the well-known writer Ah Cheng and Wang Xiaoshuai, a representative of China's "sixth generation" filmmakers, whose core narrative has always focused on his family: mother, brother, daughter, and his wife Yu Hong, who is also an artist. In this group of works, what people see is not a glimpse of the artist's on-the-spot observation in the face of the depicted object, but through the gaze of the artist and his intimate individual, through the love of mother and child, brotherhood, romance of love, or the expression of art and style, the subtle and layered appeal of the family affection through the years, and invites us to look at the present together and think about the essence of the construction of human interconnection.
It is reported that "Liu Xiaodong: Your Friend" will be on display at the UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art until April 10.
Beijing News reporter Liu Zhen
Edited by Xu Meilin Proofreader Zhao Lin