Liu Xiaodong

The painter Liu Xiaodong is one of the most well-known representatives internationally of a generation of Chinese artists who grew up in a new society marked by rapid and frequent shifts in perspective. He uses the language of form of Socialist Realism and conventional documentary media to lend a voice to daily life against the background of radical change. Earthquakes, changes in landscape and human-made ecological disasters as well as social formation based on economic transformation: all this has been captured by Liu Xiaodong. He confronts the developments by visiting the places concerned and attempting to capture the significance of events in visual form.

For the exhibition Liu Xiaodong. The Process of Painting in the Kunsthaus Graz, the artist has chosen Eisenerz in Upper Styria, Austria, as the location for his latest project where he lived and worked for a month with a team of assistants and camera operators. The situation with the centuries-old industrial and cultural landscape bears a striking resemblance with conditions in China. Eisenerz, exposed to an enormous process of change, is suddenly transformed into a global model. The degeneration caused by structural shifts and the accompanying social transformation have created clearly visible problems; attempts to overcome them are varied. As a painter Liu does not tackle events and historical developments in a combative way, rather as a chronicler. He attempts to express the transition from one form of society to the other through pictures. 

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.