History Made Poetic, Poetry Made Historical

The painter Liu Qiming

A philosopher once said that human beings dwell poetically on the earth. There is an artist whose attention has consistently centred on history, memory and individual fate, and whose works give form to history made poetic and poetry made historical. He is Liu Qiming. Having previously seen his work and been moved by his remembrance of and reflection on history, I went to see his solo exhibition at 798. More than an hour before the afternoon opening, Summit Art Space was already busy. The spacious hall was filled with people, and Liu was occupied with signing for visitors and speaking with guests. A number of international visitors gathered around interpreters to discuss his work, some lowering their heads in thought, others nodding and smiling. These works do prompt reflection. The memory of an era ultimately belongs to each of us as individual memory. Even as an era recedes, those memories endure. During a break in the proceedings, I took the opportunity to speak briefly with the artist.

(Tian denotes Tianlu Linlang Art; Liu denotes the artist Liu Qiming.)

Tian: Could you discuss the thinking behind the works in One Line on Life?

Liu: The exhibition is called One Line on Life, with the sense of a life hanging by a thread. In the works, figures hang in the air from a rope. It bears their lives, yet seems barely able to support them: their lives hang by that thread. My attention is on the people on those ropes. I am concerned with how they live, but not simply with life itself; more than that, I want to explore their fate. You can see this in the titles of the works in this exhibition: My 1976, My 1989 and AD 2000. These are years charged with memory, and the historical events associated with them are familiar to everyone. What I want to express is that, against the larger background of society and its times, people should learn to take their fate into their own hands, without being constrained or distracted by outside forces, and without pinning their hopes on a rope that cannot save them.

Tian: An artist’s personal experiences and reflections must influence the work. Could you say a little about this?

Liu: It comes back to that familiar phrase: “Art comes from life.” Of course my own experience affects my work. Studying at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute allowed me to develop the basic skills of artistic expression in an open artistic atmosphere and to exercise my imagination. Under the attentive guidance of teachers including Zhang Xiaogang, Ye Yongqing and Wang Lin, I learned to explore what art means, to pursue artistic freedom and, most importantly, to think. The capacity to think is vital both to an artist and to the artistic value of a work. For an artist who wants to be socially responsible, it is especially important to think independently and give expression to that thinking. I am very grateful to them for this.

Tian: Have you encountered an impasse in making art? If so, how have you worked through it?