ART CITIES: Seoul-Liu Jianhua
Liu Jianhua is one of China’s best-known contemporary artists who experiments with comprehensive materialsmixed media. Liu’s porcelain and mixed media works reflect the economic and social changes in China as well as the problems that follow suit. His “Regular Fragile” series, first shown at the Chinese Pavilion, of the Venice Biennale in 2003, is composed of porcelain replicas of daily everyday objects that privilege appearance and symbolism over function.
By Efi MIchalarou
Photo: Pace Gallery Archive
Liu Jianhua’s solo exhibition in Seoul focuses on his mastery of porcelain, a material he has been experimenting with since 1977, when he began working as an apprentice in the Jingdezhen Pottery and Porcelain Sculpture Factory, that is the oldest established center of ceramic production in China. Significant series form the artist’s oeuvre figure in the show including “A Unified Core” (2018); “The Shape of Trace” (2016–2022); “Blank Paper” (2009–2019) and “Lines” (2015–2019). Through his works across sculpture and installation, Liu explores themes of accumulation and impermanence, using ceramics, found objects, artifacts, and detritus as means to examine to Chinese history and culture. His longstanding engagement with porcelain can be understood as part of centuries-old craft traditions in China. Liu also uses this material as marker of contemporary development within the context of globalization. The bodies of works included in the exhibition underscore the artist’s increasingly philosophical approach to form and abstraction, which has characterized his practice in recent years. In 2008, the artist moved away from the sociopolitical themes that had previously informed his work, focusing instead on simple, pure forms to meditate on histories of visual culture in China. This approach has resulted in the sculpture series Blank Paper, in which thin sheets of white porcelain are hung on the wall, as well as the series Lines, for which the artist creates coiling ribbons of porcelain that intersect and collide at various points on the wall. Liu’s 2018 installation “A Unified Core”, also on view in the show in Seoul, comprise approximately 500 white teardrop- shaped pieces of porcelain suspended from the ceiling. As viewers walk around the work, they experience an immersive environment that encourages deep, serene contemplation. Other highlights of the exhibition include the artist’s recent series “The Shape of Trace”, which serves as an investigation of various threads of human cultural development throughout history. Through its lyrical form, this porcelain work evokes the passage of time and the long arc of history. The material of this sculptural installation has great significance within the history of the artist’s own practice—as such, Liu’s use of porcelain for the work aligns with its conceptual focus on evolution and progress.
Photo: Liu Jianhua, A Unified Core, 2018, Porcelain, Variable dimensions, © Liu Jianhua, Courtesy the artist and Pace Gallery
Info: Pace Gallery, 267 Itaewon-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, South Korea, Duration: 31/3-29/4/2023, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.pacegallery.com/
