Li Qing holds solo exhibition at Long Museum West Bund

Wang Jie
The solo-exhibition, "Dicoria," is showing at Long Museum West Bund through October 20, features more than 40 works created by Li from 2005 to the present.
Wang Jie
Li Qing holds solo exhibition at Long Museum West Bund

Spot the Diference · Mirror (There are nine differences in the two paintings), oil on canvas, 2005

Li Qing holds solo exhibition at Long Museum West Bund

"Lighthouse and Cradle," antique wooden window, oil paint, plexiglass, canvas, frame, 2024

Artist Li Qing's solo-exhibition "Dicoria" is showing at the Long Museum West Bund through October 20.

Curated by Zhu Zhu, the exhibition features more than 40 works created by Li from 2005 to the present, including series such as "Spot the Difference," "Window," and "Framed Paintings."

Born in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, in 1981, Li graduated from the Department of Oil Painting of the China Academy of Art with a master's degree in 2007. He was selected for the Jean-Francois Prat Award in 2017, and selected as one of the "Influential 2023: Forbes China Contemporary Young Artists."

Li's artistic journey begins with painting yet, from the outset of his career, he has never confined himself to simply replication or expression. Instead, he enters into a mediation of the paint medium itself, seeking to "create an event between images and paintings." By altering the path of viewing, he shapes the relational aesthetics between the viewers and the artwork.

For example, two of his series "Spot the Difference" and "Images of Mutual Undoing and Unity," employ a diptych format, where mirrored similarities introduce a playful element, a paradoxical rhetoric, namely the mutual "painting" and deconstruction of images. This interplay encourages viewers to contemplate the uncertainty of the information.

Li Qing holds solo exhibition at Long Museum West Bund

"Images of Mutual Undoing and Unity, Leslie Cheung," oil on canvas, 170 x 127 cm x 2 and two photographs, 2007

His recent series "Windows" and "Framed Paintings" involve hand-painting window frames collected from demolished old buildings. The artist then utilizes collage techniques with images and text, corresponding and transforming the individual's life experience and collective memories.

These works exhibit traces of social development and layers of ideology while imbuing them with a profound sense of history and time.

"This is the gaze of those who have vanished, looking back at what remains," said Zhu Zhu, the curator. "Here, the window frame becomes a narrative interface, merging the dual portraits of memory and reality."

Date: Through October 20 (closed on Mondays) 10am-5:30pm (Tuesday to Thursday), 10am-8pm (Friday to Sunday)

Venue: Long Museum West Bund

Address: 3398 Longteng Avenue 龙腾大道3398号

Admission: 100 yuan


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