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| A Conversation with Liu Jianhua |
| By Meca Shi |
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Editorial Note: Liu Jianhua, an artist coming from Jingdezhen of Jiangxi Province, is good at use of white porcelain as his art language. After his 2006 Shanghai Biennale work - Yiwu Investigation provoked a strong social controversy, he seemed to have vanished from public’s sight. When his 2008 new work “No Title” was exhibited at Beijing Commune, a more powerful, more critical and more implicit art form was shown before the public. Liu has accrued and accumulated strengths in his silence. Recently, he’s just finished his 2009 solo exhibition “A Dream in Conflicts” at Galleria Continua in Italy, and ArtZine has conducted a special interviw with him.
 ArtZineChina: After your work “Yiwu Investigation” was exhibited at Shanghai Biennale in 2006, it provoked a strong social controversy; your art creation lapsed into a quiet period, and all media gave you less coverage. Could you tell us something about your life and work from 2006 until now?
Liu Jianhua: It should be 2006 Shanghai Biennale themed “Hyper Design”. It happened I had a scheme at that time; it’s my feels about Shanghai and its surrounding environment after I came to Shanghai. Yiwu, as we all know, is a smal county town; after China’s reform and open policy, it’s evolved into an widely recognized small commodity center because of its unique geographic location and its operation tactics. Actually, my “Yiwu Investigation” at that time didn’t aim to reflect the phenomenon of Yiwu, because the phenomenon’s significance had been felt by all people in their lives through all media. The reason why I made this work is, through the form of Yiwu, I could project some kind of exchange between China’s whole trading and economic ecology and the west after whole China had come into a new socialist times, namely, after the open and reform policy. As far as China is concerned, it’s usually an economic mode of cheap labor, low-end design and low-end consuming power was exchanged with the world for her economic growth. It’s different from the west, who has high-end design and high-tech industries. So at that time I would reflect some of my own sort of feels and raise my own questions from the angle of social subject matters. Actually before the Yiwu work I’d created a 2005 “Dreams” series, which was about the  space shuttle accidents. Most of the time when I create works I need a point, but this point isn’t a news report of an incident, or a reflection of social realities; I hope to find a point to bring along a whole range of things and make people think and reflect. For example, the space shuttle work is about the two space shuttle accidents, and the on-spot installation has a projection. I hope such works could make people think more deeply.
I have a feeling that human lives all have a dream, but this dream might not be in its right direction. I feel this dream is particularly fragile and short-lived. An artist’ work, most important of all, is to bring people a different idea; some ideas look at things’ development in totally different ways. The works I created after I came to Shanghai, such as “Can You Tell Me” and this “Illusory Scenes” exhibited at Galleria Continua, all have something to do with the changes of society and times. The reason why I had such a feel and would create such kind of works is, after I came from Kunming to Shanghai, I experienced a great shock, a great pressure, and a fast rythem. I believe I should go to experience it. As an artist, he’s likely to understand this experience as his point of interest, make a deep probe into it, and express it through works. So there have been such series of works, like “Floating Objects”. After “Yiwu Investigation”, I’ve exhibited like works at Shanghai Gallery of Art.
ArtZineChina: Oh, I’ve some impression of it; it should be that “Export – Goods Transport” work.
Liu Jianhua: Yes. That work continued my line of thought in “Yiwu Investigation”, mainly intended to reflect the inequality of dialogue and manner between developed and developing countries, which was embodied in politics, economy, culture, art and other aspects. I cared about it very much at that time.
I’d been creating this “Export – Goods Transport” set from March 2007 all the way until September when it was open to public; it’s of a grand scale and lasted a little longer. I was also adjusting myself at that time. Since 2007 I’ve changed to focus on social reality and humanity, and created more and more of such works. Starting from this point I carried out a humanistic investigation and created wide-ranging works, including pictures, installations and many  other sorts. I believe it’s not that those phenomena and works set are not OK or not good, it’s because of my shift of interest. I always hope I could create new things. I wouldn’t keep to a single “symbol” or something of superficial occasional changes. Some artists, of course, were doing very well on this point, but it’s not my interest, because it couldn’t give me new excitement. If you create works without any of your own inner impulse, it must be something wrong; it’s my own view. So I hope I could have different feels at different times, and express such feels through works. I would do some new experiments, even if they’re much immature; I would grow increasingly mature through accumulation.
To understand an artist you should look at the course of his development instead of his works at certain time periods. Put him in the grand environment of art history we should be able to locate where his value lies. The current society is more eager for quick success and instant benefits, and there’s problem with the criteria for things.
ArtZineChina: You mean the auction price?
Liu Jianhua: One is auction price; another is one’s works being collected by so-and-so art gallery or museum. Of course it’s a good recognition of an  artist, and it’s a good thing, but it never means his works are not good when he has no such recognitions. So we should look at the issue in a long-term vision. It’s often the case good artists are rediscovered posthumously out of previous nobodies. History may have a positive and also a negative influence; this society lacks something spiritual.
ArtZineChina: Because there’s a material mark post or criterion there.
Liu Jianhua: Although all people know this point, when it’s actually put into practice, what mass media are truly interested in are still things of illusory sort, such as star effect. Star culture is a popular culture, which has its lovely side but also a superficial and impetuous side. People knowing contemporary art, to tell the truth, are really quite few in number. Academically, contemporary art is an elite culture; it’s a fact irrevocable. Now, works like “Yiwu Investigation” are likely to arouse controversy, because it’s effective, spectacular, relevant to life, and visually striking. But I feel after I’ve done this I wouldn’t necessarily continue it.
ArtZineChina: You’re tired of narration of social status quo already?
Liu Jianhua: It couldn’t be called “tired” either; only it’s no longer my point of interest.
As for this “Yiwu Investigation” work, when you look back, you would see a rather interesting content in it: it always threads through the manners of whole China’s development of trade. After 2006, the whole foreign trade economy has gradually come down, including Yiwu’s present plight. The significance of “Yiwu Investigation” would continue down the course of the whole economic and international trade development.
Artists should be looking for new languages, but it needs artists to explore by themselves. If he finds a prototype of his own self, the chances to copy it are rare.
 ArtZineChina: Take your just finished solo exhibition at Galleria Continua in Italy as an example: one of the works called “Illusory Scenes” was created out of ready-made plastic chips for gambling, it’s different from the previous uses of ceramics or white porcelain. Does your change of materials represent your change of ideas?
Liu Jianhua: Ceramics is a material I’ve known since my childhood years; compared with other artists, I do feel a bit different when I use ceramics, because it’s been a part of my life – I’ve known this material since 14.
Later I studied sculpture in college – a whole set of western practices. I’ve experimented with all materials, such as copper, glass fiber reinforced plastics, wood, plaster stone and others. Still later, I changed to ceramics, not to look for an unpopular stuff, but because other materials don’t fit my ideas at that time, and ceramics is more appropriate, such as for this “Fond Memories” work. Those days fewer people used ceramics, so I had to explore without a comparison or reference, and visualized what its effect should be like – this effect and process are nothing but the creation process. It’s not that many people had experimented with many methods and colors, then I would create a model of my own and for the rest I would draw on existing methods and colors, which was relatively simple.
Art, particularly contemporary art, after other people accept it, it loses its “avant-garde” nature.
ArtZineChina: You mean after its being accepted by public?
Liu Jianhua: Its being accepted by art museums, curators, the public and others. Because after a work enters the art museum, the exhibition system and the collection system, it means “acceptance”, unlike at the very beginning you came about it without anyone’s recognition. When other people accept you, you still need an independent thinking, an inner fight or an imagination, and a further understanding.
ArtZineChina: So it means a loss of art’s avant-garde nature.
Liu Jianhua: Yes. This is why I always stress we should adjust our state constantly and produce new works incessantly.
ArtZineChina: Does such an attitude have anything to do with your personality? I feel it’s closely related to your personality.
Liu Jianhua: It might be related somehow; I’m myself not a man of the strictly obedient sort.
Meca: It’s obvious from your experiences. What are all the works in your solo exhibition in Italy intended to tell viewers? What’s the source for their creations?
Liu Jianhua: The exhibition was called “A Dream in Conflicts”; the whole exhibition was an outcome of my discussion with Galleria Continua, because the exhibition space was very large and it was refashioned out of an old theater. There were two other artists at the same time, so it’s three artists’ separate solo exhibitions; but each had his own particular emphasis, and each one’s exhibition had a different theme. Galleria Continua particularly wanted to exhibit “Dreams”; they felt more attached to that work. So I proposed several schemes. Because “A Dream” was the leading work, the idea of all other  works should conform to this one, so there were works of “The Boxer” and “The Crown of Desire”, and also “Illusory Scenes”. These four works also continued my social reflection line of thought; for example, the boxing gloves – actually every boxing glove has a country name underneath it.
ArtZineChina: Altogether how many boxing gloves were there?
Liu Jianhua: About 14 pieces; every country’s name was written in their mother tongue, so China was “中国” and the United States was “U.S.A”. Those were all ideologically opposed countries: North Korea, Japan, China, the United States of America, Great Britain, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, India, Pakistan, France and Germany.
ArtZineChina: In a sense it’s also a contrast between the strong and the weak.
Liu Jianhua: I think it’s not necessarily the weak versus the strong, they’re mainly ideologically different countries. Meanwhile, the use of boxing gloves meant more obviously, and more powerfully. There’s another work “Crown” (Editor’s note: “The Crown of Desire”), which was a challenge to modern man’s heart desire.
“No Title” was made out of Song Dynasty’s household utensils; the whole form was a contour profile of the human head. I was fond of Song Dynasty’s  household utensils because they’re simple, neat, peaceful and spiritual. Though the modelling of “No Title” was abstract, it’s targeted at something and remained quite intriguing at the exhibition scene of Beijing Commune.
ArtZineChina: “A Dream in Conflicts” has a video clip of air crash in it. Are you still horrified at the idea of air crash and unexpected disasters? What a feel would you convey to viewers apart from the horror?
Liu Jianhua: It should be in a time in the year of 2002 when we heard of many reported air accidents; at that time I was giving an exhibition “Ordinary Life & Fragility”. In fact, my works can be divided into two lines: one is about more individual experiences, feelings about ordinary life and things, and more secret inner worlds, such as “Fond Memories”, “Secrets” and the painted sculpture series; another is about concerns with social problems. My current works may have integrated these two factors and are not so clear-cut in their position. Like “No Title”, which is actually an outcome after a certain accumulation, it’s not as explicit as “Yiwu Investigation”; it asks people to think, and is something conceptual; it’s of “meaningless meaning”.
ArtZineChina: Look abstract, actually it represents a kind of artist’s opinion on social problems. So, in the course of your creation, which people have influenced you?
Liu Jianhua: As far as “influence” is concerned, we couldn’t be divorced from the so-called “wind vane”; as for me, I’ve been with my uncle since  my childhood years, and he’s of great importance to me; besides, some artists might also have had some influence on me.
ArtZineChina: For example, which domestic and foreign artists?
Liu Jianhua: Domestically, they’re mostly some traditional and master sort of set works, such as those by “Bada Shanren” and the like. But actually when we’re in college, we all wouldn’t care about things of this sort; we would care about western art. Only in later years could we have the feel that China has a very good cultural background. Why it’s like this is because of the education in those years, and also because I myself had a belief that since I was learning sculpture I should get closer to the west, such as the works by Michelangelo and Rodin. However, as a Chinese artist, I must learn our native art, or else how could my works convey differently from other people? As for contemporary art, I’ve always had great admirations for American artist Louise Bourgeois; this old American woman has lived through times of modernism and is always keeping to her own art creations. Don’t pursue contemporary art as too utilitarian an object, we should go about it as a culture.
ArtZineChina: You mean going about it as an elite culture?
 Liu Jianhua: It’s indeed an elite culture, but has to be popularized through exhibitions and allow the public to follow, understand and exchange art and art works. The so-called elite culture doesn’t mean to exclude the general public, but to spot lots of social problems timely and acutely through artists’ accumulations; this sort of problems and inspirations are by no means available to every one, even an artist could perceive them only at very special moments.
ArtZineChina: What’s your daily procedure at other times?
Liu Jianhua: It goes like this: if I work on ceramics there’s no such a condition in Shanghai but I’ve known Jingdezhen very well and there’s such an atmosphere. So I would get models prepared in Shanghai, and go back to Jingdezhn in person. Because I teach in college, I have to run back and forth between two places.
ArtZineChina: What galleries are you cooperating with currently?
Liu Jianhua: Beijing Commune, Galleria Continua, and others.
ArtZineChina: Could you tell us something about the new works you’re currently making? Would you go to join in the art projects for the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai?
Liu Jianhua: A few days back I’ve just submitted a plan for World Expo art projects; it’s not clear yet if I can join in or not. My new work’s still under way, but currently I could say nothing more about it. 
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