Lisson Gallery

Liu Xiaodong

Liu Xiaodong is a painter of modern life, whose large-scale works serve as a kind of history painting for the emerging world. Liu locates the human dimension to such global issues as population displacement, environmental crisis and economic upheaval, but through carefully orchestrated compositions, he walks the line between artifice and reality. A leading figure among the Chinese Neo-Realist painters to emerge in the 1990s, his adherence to figurative painting amounts to a conceptual stance within a contemporary art context where photographic media dominate. His undertaking ‘to see people as they really are’ was galvanised after graduating from the Central Academy of Fine Arts and, alert to the legacy of Chinese Socialist Realism, his compositions are painted with loose, casual brushstrokes and layered with meaning. While he works from life and often en plein air, he chooses sitters to supply ancillary narratives to landscapes or situations. From recent location-specific series, such as Transgender/Gay in Berlin, featuring portraits of the transgender woman Sasha Maria which were featured in Liu's first comprehensive retrospective 'Slow Homecoming' in Düsseldorf, to his London series Half Street (2013), as well as The Hotan Project (2012-13) in the Xinjiang province of China, Liu has also created an automated painting machine entitled Weight of Insomnia (2016), which translates a digital video feed of traffic streams and human movement in real time into a new body of paintings tracing time, memory and behaviour. In Borders (2021) at the Dallas Contemprary, Liu embedded himself within Texas region communities, documenting individuals, locations and contemporary societies. He describes a varied world animated and enriched by diversity, where family and collective values stand out as  primordial communal means for peace and fraternity. In so doing, Liu re-assesses painting in the age of internet and algorithm and implicitly invokes the present condition, in which humans and other objects reciprocally co-create the world as we know it.

Liu Xiaodong lives and works in Beijing but has undertaken projects in Japan, Italy, the UK, the US, Cuba and Austria, and closer to home, in Jincheng, in the north-eastern province of Liaoning, China, where he was born in 1963. He has a BFA and an MFA in painting from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (1988, 1995), where he now holds tenure as professor. He continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Complutense, Madrid, Spain (1998–99). His work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at venues including the Dallas Contemporary (2021);  UCCA Edge, Shanghai (2021); Louisiana Museum, Denmark (2019); NRW-Forum & Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany (2018); Chronus Art Centre, Shanghai, China (2016); Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy (2016); Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, Italy (2015); Shao Zhong Foundation Art Museum, Guangzhou, China (2014); Minsheng Museum, Shanghai, China (2014); Seattle Art Museum, WA, USA (2013); Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (2013); Kunsthaus Graz, Austria (2012); Xinjiang Arts Centre, Urumqi, China (2012); and Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China (2010). His work has also been included in numerous group exhibitions including Qatar Museums Gallery, Doha (2016), Gwangju Biennale (2014), Shanghai Biennale (2000, 2010), the 15th Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2006) and the Venice Biennale, Italy (2013, 1997).

 

Recent, current and forthcoming projects

'Shaanbei', Lisson Gallery, New York (May 4 - June 10 2023)

'Topologies of the Real: Techne Shenzhen 2023', Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning, China (24 March - 30 July 2023)

 

The Roar, 2021

Liu Xiaodong
The Roar, 2021

oil on canvas, 250 x 300 cm (98 3/8 x 118 1/8 in)

Three Gorges: Newly Displaced Population, 2004

Liu Xiaodong
Three Gorges: Newly Displaced Population, 2004

Oil on canvas, 300 x 1000 cm (118 x 393 in)

Xiao Yi, 2007

Liu Xiaodong
Xiao Yi, 2007

Oil on canvas, 282.9 x 282.9 x 3.8 cm (111 3/8 x 111 3/8 x 1 1/2 in)

Two Men Basking in the Sun 2020.5.14, 2020

Liu Xiaodong
Two Men Basking in the Sun 2020.5.14, 2020

Acrylic on C-print, 33 x 43.2 cm (13 x 17 in)

Coming across a scene like this one cannot but think of Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe 2020.06.12, 2020

Liu Xiaodong
Coming across a scene like this one cannot but think of Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe 2020.06.12, 2020

Watercolour on paper, 26 x 36 cm (10 1/4 x 14 1/8 in)

Weight of Insomnia (BWM Dingolfing), 2017-2018

Liu Xiaodong
Weight of Insomnia (BWM Dingolfing), 2017-2018

Acrylic on canvas, 250 x 300 cm (98 3/8 x 118 1/8 in)

Weight of Insomnia (Beijing), 2016

Liu Xiaodong
Weight of Insomnia (Beijing), 2016

Acrylic on canvas, 250 x 300 cm (98 3/8 x 118 1/8 in)

Isaac with his walking stick in the shape of ?, 2018

Liu Xiaodong
Isaac with his walking stick in the shape of ?, 2018

Oil on canvas, 170 x 150 cm (11 3/4 x 15 3/4 in)

Green Pub, 2013

Liu Xiaodong
Green Pub, 2013

Oil on cotton duck, 220 x 225 cm (86 1/2 x 88 1/2 in)

East, 2012

Liu Xiaodong
East, 2012

Oil on canvas, 250 x 300 cm (98 1/2 x 118 in)

Into Taihu, 2010

Liu Xiaodong
Into Taihu, 2010

Oil on canvas, 300 x 400 cm (118 x 157 1/2 in)

Out of Beichuan, 2010

Liu Xiaodong
Out of Beichuan, 2010

Oil on canvas, 300 x 400 cm (118 x 157 1/2 in)

Brawl, 2018

Liu Xiaodong
Brawl, 2018

Oil on canvas, 250 x 300 x 5 cm (98 3/8 x 118 1/8 x 2 in)

June 2020, New York, 2020

Liu Xiaodong
June 2020, New York, 2020

Oil on canvas, 177.8 x 182.9 x 5.1 cm (70 x 72 x 2 in)

Exhibitions

  1. Liu Xiaodong: Shaanbei

    Liu Xiaodong: Shaanbei

    4 May – 10 June 2023

  2. Liu Xiaodong

    Liu Xiaodong

    24 September – 4 October 2020

  3. Liu Xiaodong: Spring in New York

    Liu Xiaodong: Spring in New York

    29 June – 12 July 2020

  4. Liu Xiaodong: Weight of Insomnia

    Liu Xiaodong: Weight of Insomnia

    25 January – 2 March 2019

  5. Liu Xiaodong: Half Street

    Liu Xiaodong: Half Street

    27 September – 2 November 2013

Shop

  1. Half Street

    Half Street

  2. The Position of the Moon and the Stars

    The Position of the Moon and the Stars

  3. Weight of Insomnia

    Weight of Insomnia

  4. Spring in New York, limited edition facsimile sketchbook

    Spring in New York, limited edition facsim...

  5. Spring in New York

    Spring in New York

  6. Shaanbei

    Shaanbei

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