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 in the aftermath of 1989 events 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) currently 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).

Forthcoming Exhibitions:

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

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

Liu Xiaodong
Weight of Insomnia (Gwangju)

2018
Acrylic on canvas 240 x 300 cm 94 3/8 x 118 in

Liu Xiaodong
Weight of Insomnia (Karlsruhe)

2017-2018
Acrylic on canvas 250 x 300 cm 98 3/8 x 118 1/8 in

Liu Xiaodong
Weight of Insomnia (BWM Dingolfing)

2017-2018
Acrylic on canvas 250 x 300 cm 98 3/8 x 118 1/8 in

Liu Xiaodong
Weight of Insomnia (Beijing)

2016
Acrylic on canvas 250 x 300 cm 98 3/8 x 118 1/8 in.

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

Liu Xiaodong
Make up

2018
Oil on canvas 30 x 40 cm 11 3/4 x 15 3/4 in

Liu Xiaodong
Bananas and eggs

2018
Oil on canvas 30 x 40 cm 11 3/4 x 15 3/4 in

Liu Xiaodong
The Position of the Moon and Stars

2016
Group of 36 paintings Oil on canvas

Liu Xiaodong
N 24.997, E 51.288

2016
Group of 4 paintings Oil on canvas 60 x 60 x 3.8 cm, 40 x 40 x 3.8 cm, 30 x 30 x 3.8 cm and 20 x 20 x 3.8cm 23 1/2 x 23 1/2 x 1 1/2, 15 2/3 x 15 2/3 x 1 1/2, 11 2/3 x 11 2/3 x 1 1/2 and 7 2/3 x 7 2/3 x 1 1/2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
N 25.292, E 51,525

2016
Group of 4 paintings Oil on canvas 60 x 60 x 3.8 cm, 40 x 40 x 3.8 cm, 30 x 30 x 3.8 cm, and 20 x 20 x 3.8cm 23 1/2 x 23 1/2 x 1 1/2, 15 2/3 x 15 2/3 x 1 1/2, 11 2/3 x 11 2/3 x 1 1/2 and 7 2/3 x 7 2/3 x 1 1/2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Time

2014
Oil on canvas 20 canvases 60 x 60 cm each / 23 1/2 x 23 1/2 in. Overall dimensions: 240 x 300 cm / 94 1/2 x 118 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Egyptian Restaurant 8

2013
Acrylic on C-print Framed: 47.3 x 58.5 x 5 cm / 18 1/2 x 23 x 2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Egyptian Restaurant 1

2013
Acrylic on C-print Framed: 58.5 x 47.3 x 5 cm / 23 x 18 1/2 x 2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Green Pub

2013
Oil on cotton duck 220 x 225 cm / 86 1/2 x 88 1/2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Egyptian Restaurant

2013
Oil on cotton duck 200 x 220 cm / 79 x 86 1/2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
White Pub 6

2013
Acrylic on C-print Framed: 47.3 x 58.5 x 5 cm / 18 1/2 x 23 x 2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Green Pub 4

2013
Acrylic on C-print Framed: 47.3 x 58.5 x 5 cm / 18 1/2 x 23 x 2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Egyptian Restaurant 4

2013
Acrylic on C-print Framed: 47.3 x 58.5 x 5 cm / 18 1/2 x 23 x 2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
White Pub 4

2013
Acrylic on C-print Framed: 47.3 x 58.5 x 5 cm / 18 1/2 x 23 x 2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
White Pub

2013
Oil on cotton duck 220 x 225 cm / 86 1/2 x 88 1/2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Green Pub 5

2013
Acrylic on C-print Framed: 47.3 x 58.5 x 5 cm / 18 1/2 x 23 x 2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Egyptian Restaurant 3

2013
Acrylic on C-print Framed: 47.3 x 58.5 x 5 cm / 18 1/2 x 23 x 2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
The Moon

2012
Oil on canvas Diptych 42.4 x 30 x 2 cm / 16 2/3 x 11 2/3 x 2/3 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Crazy Mess #3

2012
Oil on canvas 33 x 38 cm / 13 x 15 in.

Liu Xiaodong
East

2012
Oil on canvas 250 x 300 cm / 98 1/2 x 118 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Red and Green

2012
Oil on canvas Diptych Each: 20 x 30 x 2 cm / 8 x 12 x 1 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Into Taihu

2010
Oil on canvas 300 x 400 cm / 118 x 157 1/2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Out of Beichuan

2010
Oil on canvas 300 x 400 cm / 118 x 157 1/2 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Three Gorges: Newly Displaced Population

2004
Oil on canvas 300 x 1000 cm / 118 x 393 in.

Liu Xiaodong
Waheed in lord's robes

2009
Oil on canvas 90 x 100 cm / 35 1/2 x 39 in.

Liu Xiaodong
80 Lohan

2004
Oil on canvas

Liu Xiaodong
Man on Kang

2003
Oil on canvas