BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Painter Liu Xiaodong's solo exhibition "Liu Xiaodong: Your Friend" was recently launched at the UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, focusing on Liu Xiaodong's "Your Friend" series created when he returned to China in the early days of the epidemic in 2020, as well as related creative manuscripts, diaries and newly filmed documentaries, which focused on the artist's creative practice in recent years.
"Liu Xiaodong: Your Friend" was carried out by the organizers
The exhibition was first exhibited at UCCAEdge in Shanghai in 2021, and some of the new works constitute the main body of the Beijing tour, which 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. As a pioneer of Chinese neorealist painting, Liu Xiaodong emerged in the 1990s, clearly portraying 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, recording the social realities staged with a paintbrush.
"Liu Xiaodong: Your Friend" was carried out by Gao Kai
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.
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. The title of the exhibition stemmed from the fact that when painting a portrait of film director Zhang Yuan, Liu Xiaodong found his mantra "Your Friend" quite witty and interesting, so he decided to name the exhibition after it.
This exhibition presents the most intimate people portrayed by Liu Xiaodong with his trademark keen perception and creative approach. The core narrative of his creation 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 we 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 building the interconnected relationship between human beings.
In addition, the exhibition will also feature a series of Liu Xiaodong's small works on paper, diary manuscripts, and a film of the same name, filmed by director Yang Bo, documenting the creation process and background of the above works. Following the solo exhibition "Golden City Kid" held by Beijing UCCA in 2010, this exhibition continues Liu Xiaodong's long-term close attention to reality and the instantaneous freeze of the living conditions of all kinds of ordinary people under the torrent of the development of the times.
Liu Xiaodong's capture of human emotions that connect with each other and transcend culture, politics and race in his creation is not only his inheritance and exploration of neorealist painting, but also an artist's unremitting exploration of the true meaning that history gives to the present.
The well-known painter Liu Xiaodong graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1988 and has been teaching at the school ever since. It is reported that the exhibition will last until April 10. (End)