return to worldwidereview.com,
the home of critical reviews
From: Press Release Category: Art Date: 02 June 2009 Time: 08:06 AM Review: In Liu Ding’s third solo exhibition at L.A. Gallery after Samples from the Transition Products (2006) and Traces of Sperm (2008), we are showcasing a selection of his works from recent years. At the same time we are pleased to point out that Liu Ding will participate in this year’s 53rd Venice Biennale, representing the People’s Republic of China with Liu Ding’s Store – The Utopian Future of Art, Our Reality (curated by Lu Hao and Zhao Li). Liu Ding was born in the southern city of Changzhou in 1976. Liu's father studied Chinese medicine, a factor that perhaps led Liu to incorporate aspects of medicine, drugs, and remedies into his early photographs and installations. Liu Ding's independent nature so on led him to abandon formal education and move to Shanghai, where he started up his own curatorial/art/design outfit Pink Studio in 2001. Freed from the regimen of an art school curriculum, Liu's artistic practice is overwhelmingly diverse, encompassing installation, painting, photography, and theater set design and production. His professional skills are equally varied, including work as a magazine editor, television producer, film director and, more recently, curator. The range of his practices are not easily contained under one rubric and, like many of his generation, he defies categorization, favoring instead the designation of "contemporary artist" over any media-specific label or nomenclature. Owing in part to his background in theater and set design, and as a product of "new China," Liu has a developed affinity for the surface texture and external appearance of things. Under his direction, these objects, materials, and daily items are readily configured to highlight the absurdities and exaggerated features characteristic of his generation. His heightened interest in all things visual - evident through his penchant for mirrors, polished surfaces, precious materials, and dramatic use of color - tackle the surface in order to get at something much deeper and darker residing beneath. It is through these elements that Liu's prevailing concerns with desire and disillusionment, reality and fiction, rational and irrational, find unique form and expression. Pauline J. Yao In „Young Chinese Artists – the Next Generation“, eds. Noe – Piech – Steiner“, Prestel Publishers, 2008 L.A.Galerie - Lothar Albrecht Domstrasse 6 60311 Frankfurt Germany www.lagalerie.de L.A.Galerie-Frankfurt@t-online.de