Liu Xiaodong exhibit features lots of photos, films
Print Edition
PERHAPS there is no other artist like Liu Xiaodong, who has close connections to China’s famous Sixth Generation of film directors.
“Children Friends Getting Fat — Moving Image of Liu Xiaodong 1984-2014,” now on display at the Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, features more than 1,000 photographs taken by Liu since 1983, as well as several documentaries about him by directors at home and abroad, including Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Jia Zhangke and Wang Xiaoshuai.
The photographs are divided into several categories, casting light on the artist’s interactions with his family, friends and society. They bear witness to the evolution of Chinese social life during the past 30 years.
Liu was born in 1963 in the small industrial town of Jincheng, a pulp and paper-producing center in Liaoning Province. At 17, he moved to Beijing to study art at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, where he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
Liu’s painting technique is widely recognized as among the finest in China.
Chen Danqing, the renowned artist and critic, said, “Liu always knows how to transform what he sees into painting. Whenever he starts painting, he immediately shows up as an extraordinary craftsman, almost a superman.”
‘Extraordinary craftsman’
During the past 10 years, the artist has brought his small movie team with him. The camera is always turned on him, resulting in many movies. Two have won various film awards.
Since 1990, Liu has participated with the Chinese Independent Film Movement, with a leading role in “The Days,” which was named one of the 100 most important international films of the past century by the BBC.
In 2006, he starred in “East,” a documentary about the Three Gorges Dam and a Thailand painting project by director Jia Zhangke. This film was entered into the 2006 Venice Film Festival.
“It is rather difficult to select the photos from a sea of photographs for this exhibition over the past decades,” Liu said. “But under the three categories, it is easier. What I try to express through these photographs is — ordinary life is so simple, yet at the same time it is all too complicated under the surface.”
Date: Through July 31, 10am-8pm, closed on Monday
Venue: Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum
Address: Bldg F, 570 Huaihai Rd W.
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