The text about Liu Xintao's works is after Biography
1968
Born in Sichuan Xi Chang
1992
Graduated from Sichuan Fine Art Academy with Bachelor Degree
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2009
Parade With Beautiful Dress at Night, Qiang Art Museum, Beijing, China
2008
Liu Xintao Solo Exhibition, Bada Art Gallery, 798, Beijing, China
2006
"Despondent Night" in Vanessa Art Link, Jakarta - Indonesia
1997
The Face of City 1997 - Liu Xintao Oil Painting Solo Exhibitions in Chen Du.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2009
Exhibition of Elaborated Works, PYO Gallery, Beijing, China
Beautiful New World: Chinese Contemporary Art, PYO Gallery, Beijing, China
Reflecting Light - New Art, Xihu Art Museum, Hangzhou; Wall Art Museum, Beijing, China
The Journey of Night - Contemporary Art Exhibition, Yan Club Arts Center, Beijing, China
Art SH 2009, Shanghai, China
2008
GO GAME, BEIJING Contemporary Art Exhibition, German Embassy, China
Frieze Art Fair, London, British
Bologna Art Fair, Bologna, Italy
"Art Beijing"Art Fair, Agricultural Exhibition Center, Beijing, China
Many Dimensions Vision-Artworks of 11 Contemporary Chinese Artists, You Gallery, Beijing, China
Asia International Contemporary Art Exhibition, Hong Kong Exhibition Center, Hong Kong
Selected Works Exhibiotion of China Contemporary galleries, Ge Feng Contemoprary Art Museum, Shen Zhen, China
Virtual City- New power-China Contemporary Art Biennale, Yuangong Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Gathering And Self-controlling, Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition, ZuPu Art Center, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Shanghai Art Fair 2008, Shanghai, China
Paintings and Sculptures of the Digital Age, No.10 Art Space of Airdrome, Chengdu, China
People·History -Research Exhibition of 20th Century Chinese Art, China Literature & Culture Department and Fine Art Museum of China Central Fine Arts Academy, Beijing,China
Countercurrent - Contemporary Art Exhibition, Opus Gallery, London, British
2007
"New power-China" Nomination Exhibition, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai
"New power-China" Nomination Exhibition, Wuxi Museum, Wuxi, China
"Three years in the Blue House Art Center" Contemporary Art Exhibition, Blue House Art Center, Chengdu, China
"Chengdu Contemporary Art, North American Roving Exhibition " in Edmonds Dayton Museum, Canada
"Word of mouth From Four Corners " The 3rd Guiyang Contemporary Art Biennale, Guiyang Art Museum, China
"Continuation and Transcendence" 30 years of the Sichuan School of Oil Painting, By Ministry of Foreign and Chinese Culture Center, Beijing, China
"Transparent Ju" Y＆G Contemporary Art Series Activity in Tibet Tibet, China
"Israel - Contemporary Art of China " Exhibition, Israel
2006
Shanghai Art Fair 2006, Shanghai, China
China International Gallery Exposition 2006, Vanessa Art Link.
First "New Power China" Contemporary Art Biennale 2006, Shanghai, China
"Art Beijing" Art Exposition, Beijing, China
2005
Fascinating Oil Painting Exhibitions in Shanghai Yipo Gallery
Lu Shin Cup Painting Competition organized by Lu Shin Fine
Art Academy, awarded with Special Achievement Award
2004
The First Szechuan University Teachers Combined Art Exhibition in Chen Du.
October 2004 settled down in Chen Du Lan Ding Art District
2003
Szechuan Oil Painting in Chen Du
The 3rd China Oil Painting Exhibitions in Beijing
2002
The 2nd Szechuan Young Artists Exhibitions in Chen Du, awarded with special mentioned Prize
2001
The Face of 100 Artists Exhibition in Nan Jing
1999
1990's Contemporary Art Exhibtion in Shanghai
1998
The Fifth China Contemporary Art Exhibition in Chong Qing
1992
Szechuan Fine Art Academy Oil Painting Exhibition in Hongkong
Liu Xintao
Erwin Panofsky said that in exploring meaning of a piece of artwork, one should first observe the discriminating signs on the work and then search the meaning behind it. According to Panofsky, meaning (or content) of a piece of artwork is not presented directly on the icon but hidden in its historic and cultural connotation. Art history shall therefore focus on searching what is hidden behind the icon with the help of the signs on the icon so as to reveal the real meaning of the work. In a sense, modern art still faces the issue posed by Panofsky, while icon becomes picture and imitation turns to be representation. The term representation has several connotations. It may mean a visual or tangible reproducing of someone or something or a rendering of subjective interpretation. After modernism, tangible reproducing is no longer used as a way of art producing. The reason lies not only in the developmental logic of artistic language but also in the fact that pictures reproduced with machines pushed out the function of art. Therefore representation evolves into recording subjective interpretation. Here again we come to Mr. Panofsky, but with different indication: an artwork is a product of the subject and a representation of the object through the subject; object does not exist in its own but in the eyes of the subject. Analyzing of representation-a media between the subject and the object-is a way getting into the object. While Liu Xintao's Despondent Night has neither obvious meaning nor superficial representation of contemporary culture, we can still feel the presentation of contemporary culture. Approaches of modernism such as form, expression and super-realism cannot be applied in explaining contemporary arts; the real representation is not the representation itself and there is a real object behind the representation.
Despondent Night is a series of paintings. Since each painting has its own sub-title, the title itself doesn't directly indicate the content of the work. A concerted feature of the series work lies in its homochromy and irregular frame. Homochromy represents dark night and irregular frame might be a suggestion of despondence. Anomalous, sloppy and anxious brushwork forms the rim of the painting. While homochromy and irregular frame are the major visual configuration of the work and the foundation of Liu's drawing, they are certainly far less than the entire meaning to be expressed in the work. As we further observe the picture, we will find signs for the work. Searching the signs will help to explore the real sense of the painting. Signs can be classified into three groups. The first group is the rim. Here the rim doesn't meet the formal needs of a painting as wastes makes it disordered and disrupted and depiction for wastes discontinues, making it a transitional zone; wastes are illogically placed on the street and the street further stretches into the center of city; trim streets and buildings are flickering with shining lighting. Despondence, which is manifested in the disordered and disrupted rim vestured by darkness, sets off and contradicts to the extravagance behind it. Such distinct comparison signifies the difference between city and its outskirts as well as the price of the modernization process and modern civilization. While metropolitan wastes are byproducts of consumption, post-modern time embraces symbolic consumption and desire impulse as well as its collapse. Between symbol and desire there is nothing but endless anxiety. Therefore consumption leaves behind it not only wastes but also people brimmed with desire. In certain pictures there are brown lily placed on the dust-heap and magnolia on the drain cover, signifying a licking up of life by desire by an apposition of both withered beauty and filthy. From the pictures we can see that the artist brushed both wastes and buildings with sloppy brushwork, and that movement of his hand is driven by his personal experience, which means that the artist himself exists in the painting implicitly. However, picture composition of the work doesn't conform to the brushwork feature. No matter the artist referred to the photos or not, his picture composition seems to have embezzled from photos. A conflict between brushwork and picture composition indicates a conflict between human beings and the nature as well the relationship between the despondent subject and metropolis.
The second group of signs is the figures in the paintings. Figures-whether those in the near or those far away-are significant to the paintings. But figures are only symbolic existence as well, for they have no specific profile or identity and these is no story extended as well. In a symbolic metropolitan space, they are like ghost disassociated with metropolis. The only story is the embracing couple, seeming to have overthrown the relationship inside the first group of signs. Figures constitute a dual theme of the work, and the first groups of signs are in fact imaged scene signifying despondence. If there is no such figures, a space replacement of the objective position between metropolitan landscape and wastes shall constitute a simple analogy of representation. Emergence of the figures changes such a relation with the figures become a symbol of subject and landscape becomes the object and result of subjective sense. Action of the figures or we may say the story implies that representation becomes the result of experience, although the figures are part of the representation as well. Naked upper-body of the man implies his identity-one who disobeys rules in city or who is abandoned by the city as he voluntarily casts away metropolitan rules. In such anxiety about metropolis, he/she seems to have no right of love. In the first group of signs there is brown lily placed on the dust-heap, possibly a prediction of such brimmed people's love. It is in such circumstance that the absurdity of the metropolitan landscape emerges, not as the existence of the object but as the target of human perception-just like that of a dream. Freud said, "Dream is a roundabout way used to evade from depression. It is one of the major instruments indirectly used by our soul that we are quite familiar with." (Freud, Dora an analysis of a case of hysteria). Love is not love itself but essentially people with desire and instinct. Collapse of love will witness dying out of human beings. The natural attribute and essential force of human beings collapses along with love in the materialized world. (In one of the pictures there is mating animals, indicating desperation about the nature of human beings.) The figures in the painting are dualistic. On the one hand, they stand for people living in the city. Under the pressure of consumerism human beings face the risk of materialization. As people are drifting in the metropolis, they have to face dying out of human nature despite the efforts they make to maintain it. Therefore they just struggle in the darkness between the landscape and wastes. On the other hand, people in love also manifest the nature of human beings. If their right of love is deprived, people will completely be materialized into an object in the modern society, and love will become a tool of interest, exchangeable commodity and victim of desire. Just as the painting indicates, being in love isn't a nice experience but suffering in the dark night-suffering that is hard to carry on or give up. Observing the painting series in an assembled way, we can see that the lovers are not on a fixed site-some in the middle of the road, some in the shady corner, some are blurry silhouette far away and some are right in front of the camera. In such a metropolis, there seems to be of no place for them, even in the dark night. Interestingly, most of the embracing couples are intentionally or accidentally placed near the advertisement light boxes. Placing love near the symbol of consumerism signifies love being disrupted by consumerism or people truckling towards consumerism.
The third group of signs is car and rear view mirror. Without noticing the rear view mirror, the car itself might also be a sign of metropolitan life and consumerism, just like the advertisement light box near the lovers. Since rear view mirror is an accessory of car, if car bears certain metaphorical meaning, rear view mirror will be meaningless. The emergence of rear view mirror has two connotations, one being reflecting an embracing couple, the other being seeing one's lover through the rear view mirror. With the rear view mirror, the car doesn't simply stand for an objective category but a man viewing in the car, a third person not presented in the painting but still presented in the image. Who is the third person? If there is no such a third person, figures in the painting might be an autobiography of the artist himself and the image might just be a depiction of his personal understanding about metropolis. If so, figures in the painting are nothing but a substitution of the subject. More importantly, in depicting the personal experience of the subject, the object becomes an object of the subject, and the metropolitan landscape becomes the source of experience. Collapse in the subject leads to the illusiveness of the object, and representation of the metropolitan landscape also become rootless. We cannot clarify whether the figures in the painting stand for the real experience of the artist. But because of the existence of the third person, the subject in the painting is also objectified. An objectified subject is indeed a self-reflection of the subject itself. The third person, as a viewer, might be either a cleavage of the subject or a real viewer. The figures and landscape are, however, represented as an object. As for the artist, such a solution might be a skilled and unique picture composition. In the sense of representation, however, it is a record of the subjective interpretation. The unpresented viewer has certain assumed authenticity as he roams beyond time and space in the dark metropolitan night and witnesses everything in the painting-the landscape, the wastes and the figures. Particularly, presentation of scenes is just like an embezzlement of images and photographic picture composition makes everything unfurling in sensed reality, making the viewer authentic and sensible. Viewer can be either the assumed ego of the subject or people viewing the painting. The later subjects to the control of the former and witnesses the collapse of the dark night along with the former by taking subject interpretation as a real representation.
Although we stressed that the theme of Despondent Night is the materialization of human beings and the lost of their subjectivity, the artist naturally harmonized such a contradiction-or in a sense a confrontation of nature and materialization. As for painting skill, the artist carried out a somewhat natural presentation. Such natural presentation comes from painting exercising and personal talent as well as experience of the artist-the metropolitan environment and visual experience. Although no novelty can be found in any part of the work, a combination of these two elements makes it a unique expression. Just like the viewer in the painting, what we see is just segments and partial reality. But expressed in his way, the artist delivered the reality behind representation. Otherwise it will only be a monochromatic expressionistic painting based on a metropolitan theme.