Liu Xiaodong

signed in Chinese and dated 1991; signed and titled in Chinese and dated 1991 on the reverse, framed

Christie's, Hong Kong, 30 September, 1991, lot 62
Private Asian Collection

China, Beijing, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Works of Liu Xiaodong 1990-2000, 18 - 25 September 2000, p. 49

Liu Xiaodong, Hubei Fine Arts Publishing House, Hubei, China, 2000, p. 15 

This work is generally in good condition. There are some craquelures on the green sleeves, as well as on his bare arm. Please note that, the vertical white accretions on the man's green sleeves previously shown in the printed catalogue have been removed. Under Ultraviolet light, there is no sign of restoration. Please note that this work was not examined out of its frame.
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In 1993, Liu Xiaodong and Yu Hong played versions of themselves in The Days, the debut film of their classmate Wang Xiaoshuai. The film is now regarded as an early touchstone work of the so-called Sixth Generation of Chinese directors. In this semi-autobiographical story, there is a statement underlying Liu Xiaodong's role:"Around the same time, Fang Lijun started to use his own image to create figures with shaved heads symbolising bored rogues. Fang’s paintings and those realised in the same period by Liu Xiaodong to depict the trivialities of his and his friends’ daily lives have been called 'Cynical Realism' (wanshi xianshi zhuyi). From dealing with grand and lofty concerns about the fate of the nation, the realistic tradition of Chinese easel paintings has then descended to depicting the trivial details of the reality of the moment, mirroring the Sixth Generation Films” ¹

It was during this time that Liu Xiaodong, using his friends as models, painted a series of works on the subject of love. These paintings authentically document the psychological experiences of lovers in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as well as the diversity of Chinese society during that period of cultural transition. True Love is a representative work from this period. The entire canvas is occupied by a pair of entangled lovers, and there is nothing more to the composition, no circumstances or clues. The man tightly clasps the woman in his arms but makes no other expression; the woman completely gives herself over to his embrace. This image fragment of a two-person world brims with unspoken feelings: desire, passion, fatigue, dependence, and dissipation. The artist's depiction of posture and facial expression open the door to myriad potential stories, interpretations, and imagined scenarios. Liu Xiaodong cast off macro-narratives and historical reference in order to obsessively portray the reality of ordinary people, and the human value of the individual is recast as deserving of greater attention. Such is the assessment of Ai Weiwei:“Anything that meets Liu Xiaodong's eyes could naturally be transferred to his world on canvas. These natural and realistic attributes allow us to disentangle ourselves from our world, and it leaves viewers speechless. This result is not only a product of his methods of observation and realisation, but even more so comes from the resolution of his unique language of painting, how with his brush he transforms reality like ice melting under flames. This natural and flowing painting style magically supports and subsumes an indisputable world, transforms scraps of art into a parallel reality, and endows us with another possibility to draw nearer to people who live in difficult or powerless states, that we may all show consideration and sympathy.” ²

1 “Liu Xiaodong and the Sixth Generation Films”, Ou Ning (translated by Yu Hsiao), in Liu Xiaodong, ed. Jean Marc Decrop (Map Book Publishers, Paris, France, 2005)

2 Ai Weiwei's Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009, Ai Weiwei, ed. Lee Ambrozy (The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 2011), p. 38