「Look at the Picture and Talk about the Painting」Liu Xiaodong: Painted Well but “Not Artistic”?

Liu Xiaodong’s paintings are excellent, but they are “not artistic”! People always expect artists’works to have a sense of “beauty” and ritualism. However, Liu Xiaodong deliberately strips away the “artistic decorative nature” of the techniques. It would be more accurate to say that he is not an artist so much as an observer measuring the times with the canvas.

His “non-artistic” approach is an absolute fidelity to reality. He carried his easel and ventured into the construction sites of the Three Gorges and the old industrial areas of Northeast China, insisting on “not painting what I haven’t seen”. In “Playing Mahjong”, he vividly depicted the living conditions and mental states of the urban masses in the 1990s; in “The Violation”, the naked migrant worker behind the truck, with the gas cylinder beside him serving as both a tool and a hazard, unadornedly exposed the plight of the migrant workers in the urbanization process in the 1990s; in “The New Immigrants of the Three Gorges”, the scattered crowd had blank stares in their eyes, and the ruins in the background and the construction machinery reflected the social tension between development and sacrifice, without any judgment, just presenting.

His artistic language exhibits a “de-aestheticization” characteristic. There are no gorgeous colors, no exquisite compositions, and even the roughness of the brushstrokes are deliberately retained. He does not depict heroes or symbols; instead, he focuses on the numbness, helplessness, and fragmented breaths of ordinary people. This kind of expression is actually closer to the state of social reality, integrating the pain of the era’s transformation into the expressions of the characters’ expressions and postures.

Liu Xiaodong’s works have redefined the relationship between art and reality. Art is not an exquisite toy in an ivory tower; it is a vehicle that intervenes in reality, records the era, and reflects society. Art does not necessarily require exquisite “aesthetic packaging”. The authenticity that is close to life can turn the overlooked living conditions into visible testimonies. In this sense, he is not only an outstanding painter but also a sociologist who writes about the era with visual language.

The tea for today is all gone. Next time, I’ll brew a fresh pot and enjoy art with you again.