Its title, Go Figure!, encourages the viewer to make his or her mind up as to whether this is significant stuff. So, what would Ai say? Well, the Australian show doesn't make the kind of grand claims that the Hayward show did. Meanwhile, 55 works from Sigg's collection are on show in Australia until the end of November, at Canberra's National Portrait Gallery and the aforementioned SCAF in Sydney. Nevertheless, a sculpture by Ai of the show's chief benefactor, former Swiss ambassador to China turned Chinese art collector, Uli Sigg, greets visitors at the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, where the Sydney portion of the exhibition is being held. On June 12, Sigg donated 1,463 works from his collection to Hong Kong's new M+ contemporary art museum, which is due to open in 2017. “In a society that restricts individual freedoms and violates human rights,” he wrote in an article for the Guardian newspaper, published earlier this month, “anything that calls itself creative or independent is a pretence.”Īlready one work - a nude, dead sculpture of Mao entitled The Great Corpse by a Chinese Australian artist, Shen Shaomin - has been pulled from this Australian exhibition, having been deemed too "politically sensitive". We wonder whether Phaidon author, contemporary artist and dissident, Ai Weiwei, would criticise Go Figure! in the same way as he tore apart the Hayward Gallery's Art of Change: New Directions from China. Having rubbished the latest London Chinese art exhibition, what would Ai Weiwei make of the Aussie one? This project received Federal support from the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and support from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative.Īdditional support was provided by the American Portrait Gala Endowment.Yu Youhan Untitled (Mao Marilyn) 2005 Major Chinese portraiture show in Australia Haynes and Boone Foundation, Purvi and Bill Albers, Susan and David McCombs Levin, the Shenson Foundation, in memory of Nancy Livingston Levin and Ben and A. Through the generous support of the following donors:įred M. Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands has been made possible Her portraits speak powerfully to those seeking a better life, in the United States and elsewhere.ĭorothy Moss is curator of painting and sculpture at the National Portrait Gallery and coordinating curator of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative. Having lived through war, political revolution, exile, and displacement, Liu painted a complex picture of an Asian Pacific American experience. Philip Tinari, along with artists Amy Sherald and Carrie Mae Weems, among others, conveys Liu’s impact on contemporary art.
Lippard explores issues of identity and multiculturalism and Elizabeth Partridge focuses on Liu’s recent series based on Dorothea Lange’s Depression-era photographs.
Author Dorothy Moss illuminates the importance of family photographs in Liu’s work Nancy Lim examines the origins of Liu’s artistic practice Lucy R. This richly illustrated book examines six decades of Liu’s painting, photography, and drawing. Often working from photographs, Hung Liu (1948-2021) used portraiture to elevate overlooked subjects, amplifying the stories of those who had historically been invisible or unheard. Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands presents the stunning work of this contemporary Chinese American artist who blended painting and photography to offer new frameworks for understanding portraiture in relation to time, memory, and history.
This is also the first time that a museum will focus on Liu’s portraiture.Įxhibition Catalogue Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands will be first major exhibition of the artist's work on the East Coast. Her portraits speak powerfully to those seeking a better life, in the United States and elsewhere. Having lived through war, political revolution, exile, and displacement, she offered a complex picture of an Asian Pacific American experience.
Often sourcing her subjects from photographs, Liu elevated overlooked individuals by amplifying the stories of those who have historically been invisible or unheard. Hung Liu (1948–2021) was a contemporary Chinese-born American artist, whose multilayered paintings established new frameworks for understanding portraiture in relation to time, memory, and history. It is also a story of determination, and-more than anything-of hope. It is a story of desperation, of sadness, of uncertainty, of leaving your home. The story of America as a destination for the homeless and hungry of the world is not only a myth.