1. Contemporary Chinese Art:

Primary Documents

edited by Wu Hung

This MOMA publication brings together, translates, and contextualizes primary documents that are pertinent to a deeper understanding of recent artistic practice in China, but which were not previously available in the English language. Hung Liu is featured in the text.

2. Hung Liu: Great Granary

(Tai Cang  太倉)

Wu Hung

essays by Xu Bing, Sui Jianguo, Yu Hong, Liu Xiaodong, Li Songsong, & Wei Lin

Xin Beijing Art Gallery, Beijing 

Timezone 8, Beijing

In May 2008 an exhibition of my work was presented in Beijing at the Xin (New) Beijing Art Gallery titled, Tai Cang 太倉. The book is a document of that exhibition and the conversations that happened around it.

The gallery was located in an over 600-year old imperial granary and became an important part of the exhibition. Curated by Wu Hung (who also contributed an essay to the book as well as an interview between he and I) the exhibition was realized in two parts.

The first part was a survey of my paintings made from the late 1980s to 2008. A selection of the paintings related to subjects dealing with hunger, starvation or food accumulation.

The second part of the exhibition was a site-specific installation and had two major components to it. The first was a reinterpretation of a mural I once painted in the dinning hall at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing (CAFA). The mural was an ode to a recent excavation of ancient bronze bells and to the possibility of harmony as freedom. The former CAFA property was sold and the mural, along with the building, were destroyed. In recreating the mural, the drawings for the original were digitally printed on wooden panels (by Don Farnsworth of Magnolia Editions), and on top of that history I began to paint new elements. The resulting mural was a kind of remembering of the destroyed original. I was collaborating with my younger self.

The installation also involved a selection of antique dou斗 (a traditional grain container and unit of measure). Each one contained grain from a different region of China, which is composed of 34 provinces and special administrative or autonomous regions. The 34 dou were arranged to form a map of China on the gallery floor.

In addition to this project I invited CAFA alumni to write about their memories and experiences of the mural from their days at the Academy. Many generations of young artists at CAFA ate, conversed, played music, and grew up in front of the mural, which, because it was not Socialist Realist, seemed to signify something new - a background for creative thinking and excitement. In fact, the first Chinese rock and roll concert was held in front of the mural. Artists such as Xu Bing, Liu Xiaodong, Yu Hong, Sui Jianguo, and Li Songsong all contributed writing about the mural to this catalog.

Hung Liu

Oakland, California