Li Qing's solo exhibition "Lighthouse and Cradle" scene
Reflecting the cradle of red, yellow and blue primary colors of neon, artist Li Qing's solo exhibition "Lighthouse and Cradle" was launched in the Beijing Dual Space of the Contemporary Tang Art Center, "with the Bauhaus building symbolizing the cradle of modern design, a temporary tent swaying with the lights and shadows of the sea, as the center of the two spaces and the campfire" Curator Cui Cancan explained the composition of the exhibition, a new series of works carried by the labyrinth-style sleek exhibition Chen, Li Qing's creative vein from 2005 to the present, "Window", "Everyone Comes to Find Stubble", " The image of mutual destruction and unity, "Hangzhou House", etc. constantly extend the external space and viewing form of his paintings.
"Li Qing: Rear Window" exhibition site, Prada Rong house, Shanghai, image source: Prada Foundation
"Exhibition and Reproduction" exhibition hall space, image source: Pingshan Art Museum
If the "rear window" of the Rong Mansion of the Prada Foundation in Shanghai in 2020 is a different dialogue between Li Qing's works and the old mansion; in May this year, the nine-story tower (2) of the Pingshan Art Museum in Shenzhen was "displayed and reproduced", and it was the artist, architect and designer who worked together to make the window and building realize "you have me, I have you"; this time, the "lighthouse and cradle" is in the 798, which was once a Bauhaus factory. Inspired by modern design in the twentieth century and the Soviet artist Kabakov in the U.S.-Soviet space race, Li Qing's creations "burst out of the ceiling and send them into space."
Spa Roaming 2021, 2021
Since 2005, Li Qing has continued to this day with an average annual frequency of solo exhibitions. The themes of attention have also been the same: information and images in the age of science and technology, social mechanisms and power to watch, the relationship between people and architecture and cities in globalization, aesthetic styles and disciplines in the era of consumption...
Artist Li Qing
Talking about the theme "Lighthouse and Cradle", Li Qing told Art News/Chinese Edition that the lighthouse element dates back to 2011, "Many buildings have the image of a lighthouse, like a landscape far away from us, and there are some very utopian, futuristic urban spatial feelings." The "cradle" can be seen as the place where people are born, the starting point of their inhabitation, and even the concept of extending as a home. The French philosopher Gaston Bashira once mentioned in his book The Poetics of Space that space is not a vessel to fill objects, but the dwelling place of human consciousness: "In this dynamic confrontation between the house and the universe, we have moved away from any pure geometric form of reference architecture. The house we experience is not a dull box, and the space that has been inhabited has transcended the space of geometry.
Human Babies Flying into Space from the Cradle of the Bauhaus or Kabakov, 2021
Lighthouse, 2011
"All homes are a cradle, a very private space, the most original and original living space for people." In Li Qing's new work nearly 5 meters tall, "Human Babies Flying into Space from the Cradle of the Bauhaus or Kabakov", the cradle designed by Peter Keler for the 1923 Bauhaus exhibition occupies the center of the picture, "The cradle has a very strong quality - its shape is very simple, very cold, and very industrialized, but it is for a very weak baby, and the two have a strong conflict. Li Qing said that industrially designed products do not take into account the comfort and rationality of use, but emphasize a sense of form - rational form, industrialization, that is, "through a form, shape a life of contemporary people."
The cradle designed by Peter Keler for the 1923 Bauhaus exhibition, credit: bauhauskooperation.com
"Lighthouse and Cradle," then, refers to a process between this shore and the other, from birth to ideal, "and it can also encapsulate a quality in my work over the years—an emphasis on the relationship between the self and the other, between where I am and where others are, a psychological or cultural distance and separation, and the relationship of mutual viewing." The distance and separation that Li Qing talks about has appeared continuously in many of his works, such as the most familiar "Window" series and the "Everyone Comes to Find Stubble" series.
A number of "window" series works are exhibited at the exhibition site
The "Windows" series uses old wooden window frames collected from the demolition site as materials, and paints directly on the back of the pane, combining two scenes that are impossible to appear in reality at the same time, thereby expressing the difference between economy and identity. Most of Li Qing's recent works are about the relationship between space, scenery and people in the process of urban renewal: the flow of capital and wealth, the new division of space and property rights, abandoned, newly built, preserved and re-valued buildings... They are the new urban landscapes under Li Qing's brush.
Labyrinth Exhibition Center, 2019
The discarded window ledges and lattices become part of the structure of the picture, and the traces of old weathering are mixed with paint and brushstrokes. "Windows have a class" Cui Cancan once commented on the scenery outside those windows, so the overlapping time and space appeared repeatedly in Li Qing's creations, such as the Shanghai Exhibition Center, Wangjing SOHO and other buildings with obvious styles as a whole or part, representing the styles and aesthetic tendencies of different eras, creating a rich window world. The people in the window are looking out, the people outside the window are also peering inward, and the front desk of the luxury hotel is also displayed on the spot as another side of the world outside the window. The ingenious exhibition allows the audience to see the multiple angles of different works through the "empty window" dug out.
Yin Yizhi · Surfaces, 2020
"It's a slow process of change, the early scenes, including the view outside the window, are also painted relatively simple, and even the tones are a very nostalgic, classical realism feeling of gray tones, in recent years, this series has undergone some changes, I am constantly trying to paint directly on the window frame, and then change its color." Because I think the window frame is actually part of the painting. Its structure dominates the picture very strongly, so I can change some of its colors, and then strengthen or weaken the structure of some parts, and also have some more interesting relationships with the later parts of the painting. Li Qing's use of ready-made products is not a direct appropriation, just like the "Yin Feizhi" series from the tourism souvenirs produced in Hangzhou in the 1970s - tapestries, colorful scenic spots were flipped by him and turned into the covers of art review magazines such as ArtReview and SURFACE, and the names of the magazines were shown through hollowing out.
The "Hangzhou House Series" appeared in the form of wallpaper at the exhibition site
Hangzhou House 44, 2019
Hangzhou House 50, 2019
Behind the "Yin Feizhi" series, the "Hangzhou House" series as wallpaper shows Li Qing's "specimen record of the special aesthetic interest of the folk architecture movement", in his view, these seemingly foreign houses present the concept of beauty in the eyes of local residents, and the formation process makes him interested, "because when they choose these styles, they are not understood from a very professional point of view, whether it is ancient Greek or Bauhaus style, they may not know much, But he would go elsewhere to learn a lot of information, such as the people around him, the neighbors in the same village, the communication between relatives, or the communication between him and the contractor, so as to get a lot of judgments about beauty. Li Qing said that these photographs are more objective than paintings, and he also tried to refer to the way of the Boucher couple of the Düsseldorf School, forming his own archives in a cloudy environment with no great light contrast in a way that is as objective as possible.
"Black Group Portraits" (left) and "White Group Portraits" (right) placed opposite the exhibition site
White Group Portrait, 2010
Black Group Portrait, 2010
In the second space, two huge group portraits of black and white are placed relatively opposite, with the artificial object - the refrigerator as the protagonist, "the refrigerator in the picture has long been abandoned, they come from all over the world, representing the migration of industrial civilization and modern society." They were once manufactured with precision, like a large number of Chinese processed goods being sent everywhere, through the road, the sea or the sky, and consumed and used by different households. But in the end, it was abandoned after the functional wear and tear of 'preservation'. Cui Cancan wrote. In Li Qing's eyes, "these man-made objects composed of human imagination, human desires and traces of human life have similar typicality to architecture." He was concerned with these commodities, which were at the intersection of post-colonialism and consumerism.
Everyone comes to look for stubble and rear window (there are six differences in the two pictures), 2019-2020
"I often emphasize the relationship between the self and the other, or between the place, the psychological or cultural separation, the distance, and the relationship between mutual viewing." As Li Qing said, compared with the mirror image formed by the "refrigerator" placed in the exhibition hall, the "Everyone Comes to Find Stubble" series is Li Qing's more active mirror creation, and he intelligently and ironically processes the picture under the form of a rich sense of play, bringing the viewer to the dual thinking about art and practical experience. Two unusually similar juxtaposed pictures make viewing become recognition, which one is closer to reality?
The Aesthetics of The Shape of Mutual Destruction and Identity, 2021
In the "Mutually Destroyed and Identical Images" series, Li Qing will even make the faces of the characters blurred through the mutual glue of local pictures, compared with the previous black and white gray tones, the new works are more vivid, and also put forward more challenges to the speed and conception of his creation. In addition, the oil-absorbing facial paper material, which is also a man-made object, is also used by Li Qing to cover the faces of the characters. Portraits of people from all over the world appear in collages of prints, photographs, postcards, maps, bills, etc., which are covered by some oil-absorbent surface paper. The oil on human skin makes the oil absorbent facial paper transparent, and in the work, the oil absorbent facial paper becomes a medium for interpreting the human figure through human physiological substances, translucent green, blurring the boundary between artificial and natural.
Jade Face - EY867, 2021
Ithaca, 2021
Caspar David Friedrich's Chalk Cliffs On Rugen
Viewing the exhibition, the appropriation of classic works from art history can be seen everywhere, with "The Aesthetics of The Image of Mutual Destruction and Unity" set in the Mondrian style, and the background image in Ithaca from Caspar David Friedrich's Chalk Cliffs On Rugen, "having previously painted a variant of Friedrich's Sea of Fog and an installation of Leobin's Tolstoy, I made it into a sculpture. Li Qing said that the biggest work this time, "The Human Baby Flying from the Cradle of the Bauhaus or Kabakov to Space", also quotes Kabakov's creation, "I think that for a contemporary art creation, in fact, every new work should have a possibility of dialogue with all past works, rather than making creation a very personal thing." Without this ability to dialogue or a space to revisit, deconstruct, and interpret past works, it may be weaker for me. ”
Apartments Brancusi, 2020
Today, Li Qing teaches at a university and continues to exchange views on art history and art with students, and he has never left the academy since the attached middle school of the China Academy of Fine Arts. The transformation of the individual from a student to a teacher is only a transformation of identity in his view, in fact, work can be connected, "when the teacher's work and creative work can also complement each other, we also discuss art in class, and I think sometimes looking at the state of students, when talking about some more basic knowledge background, in fact, it is still constantly returning to what art creation originally wanted." 」 ”
The Birth of Beauty, 2021
Growing up in Jiangnan Water Town, white-walled black-tiled houses, wooden windows, souvenirs, postcards brought by the images of life have long become the source of Li Qing's creation: poetic narrative and realistic feelings. The ease with which he got a huge number of pictures from the computer in college made him feel new, and thus he launched the "Everybody Comes to Find Stubble" series, which made Li Qing stand out among artists of the same age, but the video work "We Can All" in the exhibition revealed Li Qing's attitude to the world: "All the things you feel can control, in fact, can not be completely controlled, including your feelings, your feelings about beauty, may be trained, shaped by society." Li Qing said that sometimes he would create in a relaxed and playful state, but when everyone recognized that a thing was good and beautiful, he would try to look at it from another angle. Whether it is the capture of micropolitics in everyday spaces and images, the questioning of the traditional political identity of aesthetics, and the observation of the identity of Chinese art in the context of international art, Li Qing embodies the unique historical consciousness of the younger generation of Chinese artists.