Lot 1
  • 1

Liu Ye

Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 EUR
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Description

  • Liu Ye
  • Miffy for Dick Bruna
  • 2010
  • watercolour on paper
  • 67 x 51 cm / 26.38 x 20.08"

Provenance

donated by the artist

Exhibited

Some recent solo exhibitions
Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York 2009, 'Liu Ye: Leave Me in the Dark'
Johnen & Schöttle, Cologne 2007
Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo 2005
Schoeni Art Gallery, Hong Kong 2004, 'Red Yellow Blue'
Chinese Contemporary Gallery, London 2001

Some recent group exhibitions
Arken Museum for Moderne Kunst, Copenhagen 2009, 'Chinamania'
Kunstraum Innsbruck, 2008, 'FACING CHINA'
Kunstmuseum Bern, 2007, 'Chinafenser'
Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, 2004, '"Stone Face" Bang'
Museo Arte Contemporanea di Roma, 2003, 'ChinArt'

Literature

Selected publications
Zhu Zhu, Barbara Pollack, Liu Ye: Leave Me in the Dark, New York: Sperone Westwater Gallery 2009
Karen Smith, Liu Ye: Temptations, New York: Sperone Westwater Gallery 2006
Hu Fun, Zhang Wei (ed.), Mondriaan in China: a documentary exhibition with Chinese originals, [s.l.]: [s.n.] 1998
Su Yisheng (ed.), Liu Ye, Beijing: Mingjingdi Gallery 1997

Selected public and corporate collections
Shanghai Art Museum, CN
Frank Cohen Collection, Wolverhampton, UK

Condition

This work is in excellent condition. Unframed
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Catalogue Note

In Liu Ye's art, humour and sadness blend into a whole. The stillness of his ironic images provides us with a deep sense of detachment and timeless freedom. Part of the post-89 'avant-garde' movement, his art is disinterested in the external flux taking place in modern China. Instead, he captures the inner solitude and vulnerability of the artist in face of the enormous changes taking place on a global scale and in Chinese society.
Liu has a highly individualistic attitude towards art, the world he creates is a personal and intimate space of concepts and thought and reflects a personal realm which is saturated in the general mood he lives in. His art displays enchanting and cute figures of naïve people, sometimes as famous as the pope, Fellini and Buster Keaton, in paradoxical contexts or colourful backgrounds, the initial happiness we encounter is on the verge of slipping into melancholy while the subtle humour in the images propels one to think and investigate the unique world on the canvas. Today, one of China's best selling contemporary artists, Liu is a striking example of a Chinese artist exploring his own internal world through external and anonymous figures and western icons. Most of his work is done in bright, vivid and warm colours, while the more melancholic ones are toned down to dark and cold blues.

Liu Ye was guest resident at the Rijksakademie in 1998.