Upclose with Liu Yuanshou
Liu Yuanshou, one of the most respected and prominent Chinese contemporary artists, talks to Penny Zhou about subject matters, styles and China’s burgeoning art scene during his recent second solo show in Hong Kong.
HK Magazine: You were born and raised in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution. How did you develop an interest in art?
Liu Yuanshou: It’s a weird thing because my parents are doctors, but I’ve loved painting since I was a kid. Children today can go to all kinds of art courses they want, but back then, you needed to be recommended by teachers to study arts at Children’s Palace. I was considered “gifted” so I got in. Youngsters in 70s China were told to have lofty ideals and had to try hard to live up to them; unlike many of today’s kids, who don’t know what they want to do or just want to make big money.
HK: Your exhibited series of paintings focuses on two subjects—women and the color red. Why are you fascinated by them?
LY: Red was the color of China in the 70s and it represented more than just a color—it’s a complicated conception. It’s also closely related to women in many ways. In my last series there is a painting named “Red,” which I painted in 2004 with my girlfriend as the model. I’ve since experimented more on these two subjects and gradually developed a much more abstract style for the new series. During my exhibitions overseas, the audience conceived my works as related to sex or restraint. I think they’re all of those things as my intention was kind of complex and ambiguous. The subject is neat, but the concept is flexible, and the combination provides a lot of potentials and possibilities for creation.
HK: What do you think of China’s contemporary art scene?
LY: There is definitely a fault between old school and contemporary art in China, which has caused problems in the art scene. Back in the days I was deeply influenced by the old generation of artists like Wu Guanzhong and Chen Danqing, but since the “85 New Wave” (an art movement took place in 1985 led by a group of art critics to introduce Western contemporary art to China’s art world), contemporary art suddenly became mainstream without much social context. Such a thing never happened in the US, France or the UK. There’s a more natural, step-by-step transition from classical to contemporary art that coincided with the social conditions and people’s receptivity there. But in China, the mass was forced to face a sudden shift and they didn’t know how to react.
HK: Where do you stand in these two forces?
LY: I’ve been trying to walk on the middle path and stick to my own style. See, when my peers changed their style to contemporary, I was still into classical realism. But when I started trying a more abstract approach, Post-80s or -90s kids are already doing some other weird stuff. Therefore an artist can’t always follow the trend, otherwise he/she will eventually fail—they’ll be like me, a middle-aged man with a belly, trying on skinny jeans. (Laughs)
See Liu Yuanshou’s solo exhibition “Allure” at Galerie de Monde.