Liu Xiaodong

signed in Chinese and dated 09; signed, titled in English and Chinese, dated 2009 on the reverse

Mary Boone Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above

USA, New York, Mary Boone Gallery, Liu Xiaodong-Yan Guan Town, 11 September - 23 October, 2010, pp. 127-137

This work is generally in good condition. There is a small speck of paint loss on the Christmas tree near the right edge. Having examined the work under ultraviolet light, there appears to be no evidence of restoration.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Transcending Religious Barriers
Liu Xiaodong

Since graduating from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Liu Xiaodong has never left the core of his painting practice: to confront the nature of life directly. His paintings are records of the collective life of the Chinese and the best witnesses of the times. He refuses to over-interpret his own art. As the film directors Jia Zhangke and Hou Hsiao-Hsien, who have collaborated with Liu Xiaodong, have noted, his art is like a sensitive documentary, one without artful camerawork but with the power to reach deeply into the human heart. In 2003, Liu Xiaodong left the painting studio to study the controversial Three Gorges Dam project in person. In 2003, Liu Xiaodong left the painting studio to study the controversial Three Gorges Dam project outdoors in person. He extended his subject matter from people around him to a society or even an entire people. The lot on offer, Z’s Family (Lot 1048), originated in a life sketch that Liu Xiaodong made in 2009 in Yanguan township, Gansu. After his humane and socially-aware sketching projects on the temporary workers and new migrants of the Three Gorges, the sex workers of Bangkok, the soldiers of Taiwan and the Mainland, and the families of Cuba, Liu Xiaodong became drawn to the unique and multifaceted religious culture of Yanguan. Revisiting this place, he created the Yanguan Township series, which picture the daily lives of two families of different religions. Z’s Family is about a Christian family and the centrepiece of the series, which was exhibited at the Mary Boone Gallery in 2010 and showcased the multi-ethnic and multi-religious aspects of China. Z’s Family alludes to politically sensitive social phenomena and issues regarding religion and ethnicity, but Liu Xiaogong leaves no notation and simply renders the appearances of these Chinese people with his signature brushwork. It crystallises the difficulties of an era and is a portrait of an age. As the artist himself says of this project, “I only wanted to confront some people directly and spent some time with them. To grasp the passage of time: this is not only painting, but more like an action, a kind of removal of one’s prejudice, a spontaneous, on-the-spot action, an action to be completed in the first person. In the present, life reveals its own imaginative power that is compelling, absurd, and beyond art itself.”¹

Liu Xiaodong came to sketch in Yanguan already in 2008. At the time he was interested in horses, but the unique religious culture of this agricultural town fascinated him. Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism all have their own places of worship here. As Liu recounts in his artist’s statement on the project, “If one lives life only in the present and the everyday, how do people get along peacefully? If one lives life without considering history or politics, then is one freed from many emotional burdens? Of course, we realise the endless wars between the world religions have had a profound impact on the ordinary people who live amidst them.”² Liu Xiaodong first sketched a Muslim family named He who ran a restaurant and created The He Family and other works. Afterwards, he went to the local Christian church and made a series of paintings of the four generations of the Zhang family. Z’s Family is the most important work among these. The setting is the altar of the church. The four characters wan you zhen yuan [“the myriad things have their true origin”] are on a wall above a red cross, in front of which is a television set. From grandparents to grandson, the Zhang family stood in a row in front of the altar and let Liu Xiaodong paint their portraits. Necessary for farming, the donkey is like another family member and thus included in the scene. Sitting on it is the mother, who holds an infant, and her son holds the donkey’s harness. Discounting the settings and clothing, one finds it difficult to tell from Z’s Family and H’s Family which is Muslim and which Christian. “On the last day, after I finished painting the two families, I painted an apple tree. I envy this tree. It has no prejudice and no memory. It grows naturally; it lives and dies on its own.”³ Liu Xiaodong summarises his artist’s statement with this sentence. The unencumbered vision expressed here is fitting for his trans-historical aesthetic orientation.

Born in 1963 in Jincheng, Liu Xiaodong arrived in Beijing as early as 1981 to attend the affiliated high school of the Central Academy of Fine Art. In 1984, along with Yu Hong, he won admission to the Third Studio of the CAFA’s Oil Painting Department. When he graduated four years later, he was sent to teach at the affiliated high school. Campuses were infused with idealism in the 1980s, when the ‘85 New Wave swept art schools large and small across the whole country. But for Liu Xiaodong, many trends and behaviours of the New Wave were “excessive and immature.” He was a little uncomfortable in a jingoistic, conceptualist art world. To be sure, the ‘85 New Wave had made everyone who wanted to paint seem passé and old-guard. “I wanted to do things honestly, but also to paint explosively.”⁴ To Liu Xiaodong, no single stroke is accidental in painting. "The very foundation of my painting is built upon realism, with the source of art being life itself--this, I am willing to adhere to. And because of this, the process behind assessing life, painting some details here, while omitting others there, are all things I hold very, very dear."⁵ In 1990, he organised his first solo show, “Liu Xiaodong’s Oil Paintings,” which generated a tremendous response. Although he did not participate in the “New Generation Art” exhibition of 1991, his painting style had already begun to influence painters of the 90s, such that he was in fact the earliest of the “new generation.” At the time, the famous critic Li Xianting, who articulated the influential notion of Cynical Realism, thought that Liu Xiaodong, like other realist artists of his generation, felt helpless and lost in the face of insurmountable powers. “[Your, i.e. Liu Xiaodong’s] concern for individuals was a coming down to earth from the high vantage of the ’85 New Wave, a turning towards the everyday, incidental moments in your life and your surroundings.”⁶ Liu Xiaodong himself has said, “From then on, I tended to trust only what I could see with my own eyes. Other kinds of history I couldn’t understand and didn’t have time to learn, but I didn’t trust them. This has influenced my painting style. I still like to paint on the spot, to interact with these people in person. I don’t look at anyone else’s photographs, but only my own. I only refer to the world I myself see.”⁷

Thereafter, Liu Xiaodong’s painting style and creative approach had basically been formed. In the early 90s, his works were mostly about his wife and friends. Other than sketching indoors from life directly, he commonly elaborated photographs into paintings, which would become his primary mode of operation. Regardless of method, what he seeks to do is to preserve traces of life and crystallise and concretise its energies on canvas. “I especially want my paintings to be more crystallising. How? By nothing else but my momentary feelings and my persistence, I can crystallise it.”⁸ Such life energy reflects the spirit of the times. Liu Xiaodong is not satisfied with direct realist rendition, but rather channels and embeds the contradictions and confusion of life in every brushstroke and passage in his compositions. “I sometimes wish to express someone’s internal struggles. When you want to make a lot happen but cannot, you’re already full of contradictions. I try to represent this state in painting. You can feel a certain tenseness and pressure in my paintings.”⁹

For his mastery of psychological states and his painting style, Liu Xiaodong is often compared to the British artist Lucien Freud. Both create emotionally compelling scenes with nudes. But the two are also very different in creative approach. Whereas Freud painted hired models hermetically in his studio, Liu Xiaodong wanders out and about. In the 90s, he most often painted from his own photographs, which he took not only of acquaintances and friends but sometimes also of complete strangers. He would sometimes replicate a photograph thoroughly, but he would also transform a photograph to bring out its psychological background and mood. In 2003 and 2004, he ventured outwards to paint Great Migration at the Three Gorges and New Immigrants at the Three Gorges from life. In the same year, on Cai Guoqiang’s invitation, he participated in “Jinmenbao Art Exhibition: 18 Solo Shows,” in which he painted Mainland and Taiwan soldiers from life. Liu Xiaodong emphasises the need of a true connection with his subjects and hopes to sublimate their individuality into more general emotional truths. Of this approach, Family of Z is a prime example.

1 Yanguan Township, Liu Xiaodong
2 Refer to 1
3 Refer to 1
4 “The Meaning of Incidental Fragments of Life: An Interview with Liu Xiaodong,” Li Xianting
5 Refer to 4
6 Refer to 4
7 Refer to 4
8 Refer to 4
9 Conversation with Jean Marc Decorp