Travel News: An Interview with Liu Qiming

Interviewer: Travel News (abbreviated below as TN).

Interviewee: Liu Qiming, artist (abbreviated below as Liu).

TN: Have you loved drawing since childhood? What opportunities led you onto the path of art?

Liu: Yes. In primary school, drawing was my favourite class. In middle school, besides art classes, the school organized an art interest group. Although the teacher was not particularly professionally trained, those lessons awakened my dream of pursuing art. In high school I first encountered an art teacher who had graduated from a professional art school. I began more specialized study and my artistic horizons opened up. The most important factors in taking up art as a profession were the atmosphere at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and my good fortune in meeting excellent teachers at every stage. I firmly believe that excellent teachers have a crucial influence on students. For me, my middle-school teacher Zhou Hongcai, my high-school teacher Jiao Dinghui, and Chen Weimin, Zhang Xiaogang, Ye Shuai and Wang Lin at university all had a profoundly formative significance, like gifts of grace.

TN: What is art to you?

Liu: Art is an expression of thought and spiritual play.

TN: What comments do you hear most often about your paintings? Do you agree with them? How do you see your own work?

Liu: It has changed over time. In recent years, the words I have heard most often are fierce, perceptive, humorous, sharp, satirical and distinctive. I broadly agree with some of these, although works in different media do produce different impressions. I like varied forms of expression; each medium has its own particular qualities.

TN: Could you talk about the work you are making now or exhibitions you are preparing?

Liu: At present, I am most interested in researching and experimenting with artistic expression through the internet. I will continue painting and making performance, moving-image and installation work. There may be a solo exhibition in collaboration with a European art organization in the middle of this year; we are currently discussing it.

TN: Being assigned to teach in Aba, Sichuan, and your mother’s accidental death seem like unfair twists of fate. What did these experiences lead you to understand? Have they affected your work, and how?

Liu: There may be some misunderstanding. I went to teach at Aba Teachers College voluntarily, although I was disappointed after arriving. I had originally planned to become a professional artist in Beijing. But when I graduated from art school, the artists at Yuanmingyuan were being expelled and sent back to their places of origin. With no other option, I chose to teach in Aba. I negotiated a condition with the college president: after two years of work, I would be allowed to pursue further study at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. I hoped this status and route would let me remain in Beijing to make art, avoiding the trouble of being expelled as an unregistered migrant. After two years, however, the plan collapsed because the president behaved like a rogue and broke his promise. My mother’s accidental death was a severe blow. It compelled me to reflect deeply on the relationship between an individual’s fate and the particular society and era in which that person lives. This clarified the direction of my subsequent art and strengthened my determination to speak to the times from the position of disadvantaged groups and ordinary people.

TN: In today’s fast-paced, “instant” age, how do you remain calm and continue refining your work?

Liu: People are shaped by their environment; no one can truly escape the particular environment and era in which they live. Simply put, avoiding a problem and confronting it are different ways of expressing oneself. A person’s behaviour reflects precisely the fact that the problem exists and has not been effectively resolved. I prefer to confront problems, perhaps because of my temperament. As you say, this is a fast-paced, instant age. People are easily swept up in a race that consumes their lives. In China especially, almost no one thinks any longer about a life beyond material things or the value of life. This has a fundamental relationship with the underlying conditions of Chinese society. Once people lose faith, they are not very different from ordinary animals: animals can see and fight only for the little food before them, instinctively eating, drinking, sleeping and expending hormones. What value does art have? It restores people to being human and brings humanity back. Artists therefore need an insight that reaches beyond their era and beyond material things before they can create work of value and significance.

TN: Are you satisfied with your life now? What is your current working situation?

Liu: That depends on the perspective and level. In material terms, I do not ask for much and am relatively easily satisfied. But people have many social roles, so they need fulfilment from multiple perspectives and on multiple levels. As a citizen, for example, one seeks a sense of belonging and a basic threshold of recognition in one’s country, and this is precisely what has been taken away. As an artist, I can be satisfied only when I can express myself freely and my works can adequately convey my views and thoughts. In that respect, I can only say that I am relatively satisfied, because ideological control on the land where we live remains frightening. At present, my creative situation is all right: struggling for the right and freedom to “be human” is, after all, an artist’s first instinct.

TN: You have long participated in charitable art activities. What first made you want to do this? What does charity mean to you? Are there any small stories about it that remain especially memorable?

Liu: Charity embodies human compassion and love. It transcends the boundaries of nation, race, class and individual, returning people to the basic meaning of being human. It is a precious gift from God to humanity. In a sense, the ultimate values of charity and art are relatively consistent, which is why I naturally and instinctively participate in some charitable activities. In China, however, charity can easily be exploited by business interests or particular groups for private gain. I therefore participate very cautiously, and only after looking into an activity and deciding that it is sound. Because my time and energy are limited, I have always been a participant rather than an organizer. I have mostly joined earthquake relief and other assistance efforts, as well as charitable art auctions such as those for the Vivian Wu and Friends education fund.

TN: Alongside painting, you have recently made moving-image, performance and online interactive works. When and why did you decide to become an artist working across media? Of the things you are doing now, what do you enjoy most, and what has made the strongest impression?

Liu: The core of making art is to express thoughts, emotions and ideas, rather than practise a single craft. First, history and contemporary technology offer possibilities for expression through different media, and artists have the right to explore and use them. Second, every medium has unique qualities that no other medium can replace. This is why they coexist rather than displace one another. Yet this uniqueness is also a limitation. When your attention is on expressing thoughts, emotions and ideas rather than on craft, the demands of expression come first as life’s events and things give rise to insights and ideas. Some things are best expressed through painting, some through moving images, and some only through performance. If you can command these approaches, there is no reason not to choose the most suitable medium and means. Recently, I have been especially drawn to internet-based art: how the internet can enable artistic expression and transform art is fascinating. It is an immensely powerful artistic medium whose exploratory potential and value have not yet received the recognition they deserve. In its capacity to combine forms and respond immediately, it goes beyond all traditional artistic media. Last month, I made Red Envelope. Using WeChat, China’s largest self-service platform for communication and information, I successfully shared one yuan among one hundred people, producing interesting interactions and effects. The most interesting part was the emotional shift when each recipient opened the envelope and found 0.01 yuan. “Expectation—action—surprise (disappointment)”: in that instant, people with different understandings and attitudes to life fully exposed and expressed their inner responses. One yuan compelled one hundred recipients to undertake an inner reckoning, possibly a deeply unpleasant one. Beneath the apparently playful and humorous surface lies my serious reflection. What can one fen do today? In China’s financial environment of soaring prices and escalating inflation, everyone is offering their own answer.

TN: Do you have any advice for younger people just beginning to pursue art?

Liu: I would not presume to give counsel, just a small suggestion. Choosing to become an artist means choosing a life that engages with the soul. To make good art, first work on who you are. Do not be deceived by tradition or let the present blind you; what your eyes see is not necessarily an illusion. If you are a person with the full range of human feelings and desires, your work will naturally have its own value and vitality.