Paintings and photographs by Liu Xiaodong included in exhibition '...et labora' at Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles
29 October 2019
On 16 November the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles opens the exhibition ‘…et labora’, curated by Bice Curiger. Around one hundred photographs dating from the nineteenth and early twentieth century, from the collection of Ruth and Peter Herzog, constitute the starting point for the exhibition exploring the theme of work. These rare images, from well and lesser known historical photographers and contemporary practitioners, bear witness to Van Gogh’s epoch as well as to the roots of social realities at the start of the 1900s, a period of booming industrialisation.The various black and white analog photographs, prints and postcards are complex documents, capturing fragments of realities while at the same time revealing the different facets of the contemporary lens trained upon a rapidly mutating world. A selection of works by Liu Xiaodong are presented which explore the transformation of activities and workspaces. Over a two month period in 2012, Liu documented the life of jade miners and their changing working environment in the Xinjiang region of Northwest China (known for reserve of the precious stone), through diary entries, photographs overpainted with acrylic, and oil on canvas works painted on site.
Image: Liu Xiaodong, North (2012), Oil on canvas © Liu Xiaodong
