Biography of Liu Tieming

Liu Tieming, male, born in December 1971 in Sichuan, graduated from Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 1995, and has been teaching at the Art Department of Aba Teachers' College and the School of Art of Southwest University of Science and Technology since 1995, graduated from the David Smithsonian Oil Painting Materials and Techniques Research Course in 1995, and graduated from the Master of Fine Arts program of the School of Art of Sichuan University in 2002, currently lives in Beijing, mainly engaged in painting, video, performance, installation, and online interactive works. Currently living in Beijing, she is mainly engaged in painting, video, performance, installation and online interactive works. She also devotes herself to art charity activities. The focus of his works is focused on historical memory, which is impressive.

Chinese Name: Liu Ti Ming

Nationality: Chinese

Birthplace: Sichuan

Date of Birth: December 1971

Occupation: Crossover Artist

Graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute

Representative Works: Sensitive Words, 272 Days and Nights for You and Me, etc.

Exhibition Introduction

Solo Exhibition

2013 #Floating Clouds Project@Liu Ti Ming Solo Exhibition, STUDIO67 Art Space, Singapore.

2013 "Liu Ti Ming (39.998595,116.507515)_-Anthropometry", Caochang Art Museum, Beijing.

2013 "272 Days and Nights for You and Me", Liu Ti Ming Independent Art Project, STUDIO67 Art Space, Singapore.

2008 "One Thread", Liu Ti-ming Solo Exhibition, Vision Peak Art Space, Beijing.

2008 Harmony and Difference, Art House, Beijing.

2006 Exit, Pasinger Fabrik, Munich.

2001 Liu Ti-Ming Oil Painting Exhibition, Zhongding Gallery, Taichung.

1995 (Outbound) Radon Tritium (Inbound) Oil Painting Exhibition, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing.

Group Exhibition

2014

Passing a Brick Circle Contemporary Art Center, Shenzhen

"Plastic Body" Art Invitational Exhibition, Present Art Center, Beijing

Art Expedition World Cultural Development Beijing Representative Office, Beijing

2013

Crossing Oceans-Contemporary Works by Chinese Artists, National Museum of Venezuela, Caracas

2013 Time Restart-Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition, Chongli Art Hall, Beijing

2012

"Fool's Wharf" Shanghai International Live Art Festival Shanghai

"Garden-Site" The First Suzhou International Live Art Festival Suzhou

Body Sound Absorption. -The First Jinxi Ancient Town International Live Art Festival Jinxi

"Heard-hearsay" Exhibition 798 Art District Beijing

Benetton Art Project Beijing Yimen Gallery Italy

The 13th OPEN International Performance Art Festival Beijing Space Station

Opening the Barn - 2012 Art Barn Contemporary Art Exhibition Qisheng Museum of Contemporary Art, Chengdu

"I've Been Waiting for You for a Long Time" Hoyi 798 Art Project, Beijing

2011

China's Contemporary Art Exhibition, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela. Caracas.

Lu Chuan Collection Exhibition Chuan Space Beijing

"4_" Exhibition Beijing

Digital Age Phoenix

2010

"10 Yuan" Art Activity Network+. Live Experimental Exhibition Beijing

"Hidden Phase" Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition Nice

"Sensitive Words" Network + Live Performance Experimental Exhibition Beijing

"Warm Winter Warm Winter" Project Beijing Art District

Seasonal Art Mansion Beijing

"28 Kinds and 36 Cases" Experimental Video Internet Screening Beijing

2009

Art Paris Paris

Near History - Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition, Chateau de Tours, France Art Exhibition, Chateau de Tours Art Museum, France

Everyone Plays Together Primary Colors Gallery Beijing

Experience/Amazing: Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition, Fengfeng Art Institution, Beijing

"Mixing and Sharing", CC Comprehensive Art Exhibition, Screening Art Center, Beijing

512 Taking the Newly Built Primary School as an Example" Documentary Film Internet Showing Beijing

512 Taking the Newly Built Primary School as an Example The Case of New Elementary School" Documentary Film Internet Showcase Beijing

"Fly" Experimental Video Internet Showcase Beijing

"The Day After Tomorrow" Experimental Video Internet Showcase Beijing

2008

Try to Remember Osage Gallery Hong Kong

Anti-Normality Xi-Gallery Beijing

Reconstructing China Virginia Miller Gallery Miami

White Temptation Xi-Gallery Beijing

White Temptation Xi-Gallery Beijing

Reconstruction China White Temptation Xi Gallery Beijing

"***Through It All" Chinese Contemporary Art Charity Auction for Disaster Relief Beijing

Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition Opera Gallery Hong Kong

"Chinese Context" Contemporary Art Exhibition JW Art Center Beijing

2007

"Inheritance and Transcendence" 1976-2006 Sichuan School of Painting Academic Retrospective, Ministry of Culture, Beijing

"JIN" 2007 Contemporary Art Exhibition JIN" 2007 Contemporary Art Exhibition, Art Museum of Capital Normal University, Beijing

"Reboot - Suojiacun" International Art Camp Exhibition, Beijing

"Reverse Movement" Contemporary Art Exhibition, Beijing

Ring Railway International Art Exhibition, Beijing

"Muddy Match", Beijing

"Muddy Match", Beijing, China "Muddy Match" 12-member group exhibition, New York Art Space, Beijing

Spring Blossom 798 Gallery, Beijing

Toward the Noon Space, Beijing

2006

Hangzhou, China

Red Era, Hangzhou

New Minimalist Conceptual Exhibition, New York

2005

Shanghai-Mianyang Art Exchange Exhibition, Shanghai

"From the Origins" 8-Person Oil Painting Exhibition, Mianyang

2004

Sichuan and Chengdu Oil Painting Exhibition, Chengdu

2003

Sichuan Art Teachers' Works, Chengdu

Sichuan Art Teachers' Works, Chengdu

2001

Red Age, Hangzhou

New Minimalism Concept, New York

2001

Existence-Migration Chengdu

1999

Instant: Chinese Art Chicago at the End of the Twentieth Century

1998

National Teachers College Art Teachers' Works Exhibition Liaoning

Sichuan Province Art Works Exhibition Second Prize Chengdu

1997

Urban Personality Four Art Invitational Exhibition Shanghai

Chinese Oil Painting Overseas Tour Exhibition Southeast Asia, Europe

1996

Chengdu, Documentary Exhibition of Plateau Red Art Studio

Criticism Essay

Retaining Individual's Historical Memory

-Talking about Liu Ti-ming's Oil Painting Works Ming Liu's Oil Paintings

Wang Lin

In a society where collectivism is the only thing that is respected, even the idea of putting people first is easily contaminated, and the individual is often left out of the picture when "man" becomes "people". For the Chinese feudalist cultural tradition, the people were opposed to the king, and the so-called "the people are the most important thing, the king is the least important thing, and the gods of earth and grain are the second most important thing", and the importance of the people was that it was the foundation of the king's rule. There is a prerequisite for us to judge whether today's society has truly entered into modernization, namely, the extent to which the priority of individual freedom has been realized in the social system and social life. The Constitution enshrines the democratic rights of every citizen, which we simply cannot realize in real life. The status quo of citizenship in name only has had a profound impact on the spiritual psyche of the Chinese people.

That's why I was moved when I saw Liu Ti-ming focus his work on historical memory.

Liu Ti-ming cuts into history from the perspective of personal memory, whether it's with the title of the year, or "Revolutionary Model", "Counter-terrorism Elite", "Olympic Fantasy" and other works that take the historical narrative as an opportunity. Whether the works are titled with year number, or "Revolutionary Model", "Counter-terrorism Elite", "Olympic Fantasy" and other works with the opportunity of historical narrative, the artist does not directly depict political and historical events. He always uses the technique of psychological symbolism to narrate his feelings about the fading historical memories.

This is poeticized history and historicized poetry.

Liu Ti-ming's images are empty and lonely, quiet and distant. He always uses grayish colors - grayish blue, grayish green, or grayish light red - to form a hazy, ambiguous background, or even the picture itself where clouds and water meet. In between, there are waves of clouds and water, the halo of the sun, and in between, the typical political symbol of Tiananmen Square. The appearance of this classical Chinese city building between the clouds and water has the imagery of an immortal mountain and agora, adding an ethereal poetry to the artist's creation of a surreal situation. At the same time, it also implies the historical relevance of personal narrative with its political symbolism.

The painter's depiction of people is distanced, with the insignificance of space and the fading of time communicating with each other. Whether they are walking, cruising, or making athletic gestures, dangling from tree branches and ropes, the artist intentionally utilizes the translucent background to paint them as silhouettes, thin, tiny, and floating, rootless, unsupported, without beginning or end, helpless and fatalistic. Liu Ti-ming's images reveal a deep loneliness and despondency, an emotion that is both on-the-spot and genuine. Only in this way can art serve as a revelation, revealing the truth of spiritual reality with its sensitive and subtle psychological reactions.

Artistic creation does not have to appear in a confrontational, antagonistic way to be critical of social, spiritual and cultural reality. As a personal experience of life, the critical value of artistic creation lies in the individualized artistic language that challenges the established collective discourse. Liu Timing's works are obsessed with the individual's spiritual reaction and psychological remembrance of historical events, which in itself is a denial of the authoritarian right and collective consciousness that erases historical memory. Liu Ti-ming's constant and even stubborn use of red dots and lines in his paintings is not only a formal necessity to draw visual attention to the cold gray tones, but also the red roofs, red ropes, red scarves, red underpants and so on, are all political symbols or pan-political symbols with referential significance, only that the artist dissimilates them, abstracts them away from the reality of life, and constructs surreal experiences, so that history becomes a personal, spiritual and spiritual experience through the fragmentation, individuation, and piecemealization of history. By fragmenting, individualizing, and fragmenting history, history is reduced to personal, spiritual, and lowercase history. Liu Ti-ming's poetic touching of history with elegance and poignancy aims to prove that history cannot be forgotten. In fact, this statement itself contains respect for history, even the heavy history that once caused great harm. Perhaps this is the reason why Liu Ti-ming's works are full of sentimental poetry.

Talking about Liu's paintings reminds us of the contemporary German painter Kieffer, who composed a magnificent dirge for the German nation's history since World War II with his blood-sobbing repentance and bone-deep introspection. I always wonder, when will there be artists like Kieffer who will make a strong moral voice for the suffering of history, when the Chinese painting world will start to have works like Liu Ti-ming who sings in low tones and lingers on the experience of history?

June 15, 2008

The Peach Blossom Hill side of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute

Life hangs in the balance

Liu Tieming's paintings

The High Peak

No one can say how long a thread is, how much weight can be strung together, and how much lightness can be stirred up. And how much lightness can be stirred up? However, there is such an artist who takes thread as the main subject of his creation, and uses a thread to interpret his view of life and art, and this person is Liu Ti-ming.

The distance between two physical particles in space is the original meaning of the line, which originally could not constitute a real thing, but in Liu Ti-ming's art plays an important role in connecting heaven and earth and carrying life. Why does he attach such importance to a thin and light line? This has a lot to do with his own experience. Since his secondary school days, he seems to have begun to bear the pressure that other students did not - he was expelled from the regiment because of his own protest against the school examination fraud; for a teenager, the pursuit of progressive ideals from the so-called organizational principles and political reality of the double blow. And when a few years of university had just cultivated his ignorant method of observing and expressing art and reality, the result of his graduation assignment once again dealt a blow to his dream of art - he was assigned to teach at the Teachers' College of Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan. The religious situation in minority areas and the lack of cultural information brought about by being far away from the provincial capital of Chengdu filled his heart with loneliness and comfortlessness; he was still young, he needed art, and the exchange of thoughts and emotions. So, he established his own studio in Chengdu with. In the next few years, he shuttled between his workplace, Aba Teachers College, and his studio in the Chengdu plains, and the consumption of his time and energy finally made him make the decision to resign, because only in this way would he be able to paint in peace and realize his artistic dream. However, the ensuing realities of life again and again made him feel the falsehood and cruel indifference - his friend's encouragement made him join in a scam; the mountains of paperwork and regulations of his newly transferred school distracted him; the unexpected death of his mother made him feel the harsh reality of the urban-rural difference.

Originally, he should have enough time and energy to engage in his favorite painting creation, but he has suffered from the reality of life in his thirty years of life; originally he should have vented these pains in his own images with radical images, because only in painting can he find the dignity of human beings and the meaning of life. However, when we see his recent works created after he came to Beijing for development in the past two years, we feel more of an elusive silence and indifference. In the depths of the sea of drifting and dark clouds is the corner of the symbolic architecture of the hidden but never-ending political power, from which tornadoes and mushroom clouds are released as the energy field of the external political power, which can cover the sky and make the sun and the moon go out of focus, and cause everything to go into depression. After experiencing a lot of things, Liu Ti-ming has learned to see the essence through the phenomenon, the external constraints and the reality of the disputes and disturbances can not arouse his interest in using the paintbrush in his hand to express, he wants to express his own answers to these pressures and disturbances, and wants to let himself stand in a higher point of view to grasp the invisible hand that controls the reality of the concrete world. Therefore, he chose a metaphorical approach, combining a thousand layers of dark clouds, which symbolize the weight of reality, with the seemingly small and symbolic architectural symbols in a single image. The combination of the seemingly boundless natural phenomena and the seemingly inorganic artificial objects that contain great power and energy in the painting is only possible because of the existence of the Chinese people and their confusion, without which the whole picture would appear empty and lackluster.

The figures dangling like dolls in the foreground are the artist's ultimate focus. Naked, with only a red cloth to hide their shame, they do not seem to be alarmed by the sea of clouds that seems to swallow everything, but mechanically repeat some prescribed actions that have long been "melted into the blood and put into action" by external forces. These actions come from the model operas of Mao Zedong's era, the so-called "Passionate Years" in the familiar repertoire, but in the eyes of today's Liu Ti-ming, there are only gestures left in vain, because the stars have changed, and that year's illusory ideals have long since disappeared, and no one believes in them any more, while the shells of the characters have been preserved by the artist. The artist has preserved it. Therefore, we can find from the picture, these dance characters do not have too much character traits depicted, everything is a kind of suggestive and outline.

These mechanical, stiff, dramatic figures are so incongruous with the red rope dangling from the heights that we cannot help but wonder if the rope can save these people from falling. In fact, this slender rope is nothing more than the wandering thread of life, and it cannot bear the weight of so much history and politics. It is symbolic and suggestive, just like the red underwear, red scarf and red flag that appear in some works, which are symbols of the unbearable weight of life and lamentations of the unbearable lightness of life.

The heavy gloom of the background and the lightness and grotesqueness of the foreground are connected by a life-saving rope, which is compared to a human life filament, but it is so slender, how can it be loaded with the power and light of life? As a result, a strong sense of uneasy crisis surges up and down in the picture, it flutters but is everywhere, all the time, no one can really get rid of its control. This is Liu Ti-ming's inner sense of tragedy, and it is also able to evoke at least a sense of sadness in us, the viewers.

Interview

2008-6-10

The Scarlet Seduction

-Interview with Liu Ti-ming

Artist: Liu Ti-ming (hereafter referred to as Liu)

Journalist: Cao Xiaoguang, "World Art" magazine (hereafter referred to as Cao)

Reporter: Mr. Liu, it's very interesting to see your works! The works are very Chinese and poetic, with a strong layer of melancholy color! This is very different from the contemporary art that is popular today!

Liu: Really? Very poetic means very lyrical! The so-called "contemporary art" refuses to be lyrical, huh?

Note: Mr. Liu, do you feel that your works are mainly reflections and criticisms of totalitarianism?

Liu: Criticizing, how dare I? In the face of the discourse of the powerful, I'm just taking what they do and presenting them in my own way for everyone to see!

Note: Mr. Liu, your works do not directly describe the events, but they often give the audience an immersive sense of reality! Give people more reminiscence, very humorous, but not flirtatious. Can you talk about how your creative thinking is formed?

Liu: I can't talk about humor, but I can't flirt with it. In terms of creation, I like to record in a seemingly relaxed, distant, and quiet way, rather than directly depicting the life of the moment. I think maybe when life is in the middle of it, we are always slow or fuzzy. That's why I will always wait a while before touching what was once my life in a way that remembers it.

Note: Then can we say you are an artist of historical subjects? Just like "Revolutionary Sample" and other works, the name of the work shows traces of historical themes.

Liu: I don't like to simply recount or depict history, because reality is a diverse mirror image of history, and the past and the future are simply and mechanically mirrored and overlapped today! I choose the symbols of characters or names of works with specific era labels with only one meaning, to convey my understanding and judgment of the current reality by borrowing their condensed messages with symbolic and metaphorical qualities!

Note: What do you think is the biggest factor that influences art creation?

Liu: To say influence, it's the same old saying - "art comes from life". It is only since the so-called history of civilization, the biggest influence on life is politics! It permeates every aspect of our lives, like an invisible hand, controlling the thoughts and behavior of each of us! As we have long been accustomed to our lives, there is no escape from it without realizing it! Although it is always through our lives in some specific things happening, but in our childhood to the process of growing up have long been habitually accepted and even recognized. Politics is like that, it's always about brainwashing in order to get you to identify and accept values that are in their interest.

So, "art comes from life", art to reflect life, should not simply to depict what we see, but more need to go further to dig and express those who can not be seen to control the intangible things of our lives, I think this is what we usually say about the " depth of art" meaning. I think this is what we usually mean by "the depth of art"!

Note: I believe that the general audience can perceive from your works that you are an artist with a great sense of social responsibility! Do you think social responsibility is important for an artist?

Liu: It's not a question of whether it is important or not, I think an artist should be a maverick intellectual in the society first of all! A sense of social responsibility is always the basic measure of an artist. "How to do art" is a question of method, "how to do art" is a question of attitude. "Social responsibility" is the basic principle for judging whether an artist is an artist.

Note: All this was before you went to college? Did you have any after college?

Liu: When I went to university, I was very lucky to meet a group of very good teachers such as Zhang Xiaogang, Ye Shuai (Ye Yongqing) and Wang Lin, who influenced and helped me a lot. At that time, they also had many activities, such as the "China Experience Exhibition" and "Art Documentation Exhibition", etc. The teaching at Chuanmei was also more open, and I liked the idea of being able to learn from them. The teaching at Chuan Mei was also relatively open, and students who loved art would often get together to discuss art regardless of their departments or grades! This is how I graduated in 1995 and held my first exhibition at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute - "(Out) Radon Tritium (In)" oil painting exhibition. At that time, facing the intertwined cultural scenes and contradictions of reality and ideal, East and West, tradition and modernity, I felt extremely confused and lost. I tried to use the awkwardness of the confinement of "entering and exiting" to convey my feelings and artistic reflections during the time I studied at the Academy of Fine Arts.

Note: How did the years you spent working in the Tibetan areas of the plateau affect your creations today?

Liu: When I graduated in 1995, I came to teach at the art department of Aba Teachers College in Wenchuan County, a Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province. I dreamed of finding my soul's home in this Tibetan-Qiang plateau region with its strong Tibetan Buddhism. But I soon realized that I was wrong! The sky of the plateau is always blue, but the air is suffocating. The plateau has never been a literary and political needs and eulogize the moving landscape.

Note: You didn't try to leave?

Liu: I thought about it. At that time, I also wrote to my senior brother Feng Zhengjie, who had just arrived in Beijing to work, and wanted to go to Beijing to become a professional painter. But I soon learned that the artists in Yuanmingyuan had been driven away! So I set up my own studio in Chengdu, so that often traveled between the Aba Plateau and Chengdu Plain city.

Note: That must have been very tiring!

Liu: Tiring, but also very enjoyable! I organized some activities there, but also get the support of Mr. Wang Lin, I remember when we engaged in the "plateau red" art studio, Mr. Wang also wrote to encourage me to "in the border, when the heart of the world"! This sentence is still constantly encouraging me!

Note: How did you leave?

Liu: Faced with the embarrassing lack of religious culture and the helplessness of the institutional shackles, I went through five years of application for transfer, but ultimately failed. In the end, I left Aba Teachers College with "three don'ts".

Note: What does "three don'ts" mean?

Liu: It is to leave the national system. "Three" is the Chinese system of population management of the three shackles, namely "file relations, salary relations, household registration relations.

Note: You returned to Chengdu?

Liu: No, I went back to my hometown of Mianyang. A friend encouraged him to create a private university (Sichuan Institute of Education Mianyang Science and Technology City Branch). I dreamed of saving China's education through private schooling. In the end it turned out to be just a scam. In the one or two years since I left the plateau and returned to the city, I have always been terrified, always feeling that this is not my own life, and although I wander around every day, I can't get used to it, and I am always just an outsider. Life floats like a leaf on the surface of the water.

Note: That's how we felt when we saw your "Floating" series later on! In 2002, you went back to teach at the Art College of Southwest University of Science and Technology?

Liu: Yes, and also became the director.

Remarks: Can you enter a school in the system again even with the status of "three noes"?

Liu: Yes, this is a Chinese characteristic! Everything is in the hands of the leaders!

Note: Since you have become a director, you should be able to realize your educational aspirations, right?

Liu: It's worse than that! These years I almost went crazy. The reality of helplessness and against the lies of teaching, every day machine-like regulations teaching, stereotypical teaching assessment, formatting the paper, never allow any creativity. Everything has to be standardized! These so-called university art education is like a whore's house of cards. It's a completely false life. At this stage I chose to whitewash and escape from my life in brilliant and abstract shades, which turned out to be another failure. Escape never solves the problem!

Note: It seems that you are indeed not adapted to living in the system! That's why I came to Beijing in 2006.

Liu: Yes, it's very lucky to be able to do what I love and still be able to support my family.

Note: Now I should be free!

Liu: Freedom, just for physical bondage?

Note: How so?

Liu: For example, an incident that happened in my family last year, on April 10, 2007, my mother accompanied by my father to the hospital for asthma, but in the hospital on the way to transfer, because the ambulance oxygen cylinders are empty oxygen cylinders, and my mother suffocated to death. The hospital arbitrarily denied the facts when all the factual evidence was in front of it! It was only with the help of a lot of evidence and the participation of many friends, including the media, that the hospital finally had to admit all the facts. After mediation, the case ended with a basic compensation of 45,000 RMB according to the compensation standard for rural households in Chinese law (urban and rural households have different compensation standards). Not only is there no basic spirit of repentance, but to this day they still refuse to make the most basic humanitarian-style reparations and apologies to our families!

It is ridiculous that none of the hospital's real culprits have been disciplined to any degree. Instead, the nurse who was in the ambulance was fired from the hospital! The reason for this is that as someone on the hospital side, she ended up being one of the key witnesses and testimonies in the case due to the fact that she had alerted the doctor twice in the ambulance that the oxygen tanks were empty -----

Remarks: It's a shame! There's too much of that in China, too!

Liu: Yes, it's helpless! This is the life and destiny I have to face. That's why I'm also dedicating this exhibition to my mother.

Note: After so much experience, your works are not negative, though sad, but let us feel a kind of hope and strong vitality!

Liu: Yes, the value and meaning of life is above all!

Remarks: Will you be working in other creative fields?

Liu: Yes, I am currently preparing to do some pictures and images. Any form of art has its own irreplaceable advantages and limitations, and I'm interested in trying something new!

Note: Good for you! We are very much looking forward to seeing your new works! Thank you, Mr. Liu.

April 2008

- From World Art Magazine