“Liu Ye: The Book Paintings”

Liu Ye (born 1964) has a thing about books. Since the 1990s, the Beijing-born artist has been exploring the book as a physical tangible entity as well as socio-cultural icon. Liu Ye: The Book Paintings features his meticulous, vibrant canvases which explore the charming symbiosis between the visual and literary arts through numerous paintings completed over the last three decades. Published for the event of a solo exhibition presented at David Zwirner New York in 2020, the catalogue includes the article “Reading at the Limit” by the acclaimed poet Zhu Zhu as well as an interview with the artist by Hans Ulrich Obrist. 

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Liu Ye’s painstaking book series depicts close-up views of books that have been flipped open to unveil empty pages, revealing an emphasis of the object’s form over its content. Rendering the books’ material structure, the spine, assemblage and binding in trompe l’oeil, these paintings indicate an obsession with the book as an artifact and a deep love for literature. Artists have long sought fresh and inspirational ways to inject the subject of books and reading into their artistic discourse, as did Chinese artists such as Xu Beihong, Ai Weiwei and Huang Yong Ping as well as Western artists including Egon Schiele, Mary Cassatt, Marc Chagall, MC Escher and Edward Hopper. Books and people reading have also long served as prevalent visual motifs in various artistic genres, as seen from portraits of refined gentry, still lifes to expressions of political art, demonstrating the remarkable staying power of painting a printed volume.

The presence of the book as a signifier in Liu’s paintings can be seen in his early work Scale (1995), where half of the painted canvas features a windowsill, on which rests a little volume showing a Piet Mondrian’s picture, with a ruler and pencil nearby. The painting’s other half is taken up by buildings and trees outside the window. While the book is rather centrally placed in the overall composition in relation to the other objects, it is placed slantwise, hinting at the observation of perspectival rules even as the ladder-like alignment is deemphasized. Mondrian, the leader in the modern abstract art movement De Stijl, is repeatedly referenced in Liu’s works in the presence of small pictorial images. Incongruously, Liu’s realistic figurative works are imbued with a sense of vibrancy with the presence of the seemingly trivial small pictures of Mondrian’s geometrical abstraction in the artist’s paintings which accentuate his realistic renditions. The book serves as a geometrical entity; it fulfils Liu’s constant need to incorporate abstraction within representation. Balancing elements of geometry and perspective with a meticulous realism, Liu has created a series of extraordinary and disorienting representations of the book—a most familiar subject in many cultures for centuries.

 

Liu Ye: The Book Paintings (David Zwirner Books, Thames & Hudson, September 2021)
Liu Ye: The Book Paintings (David Zwirner Books, Thames & Hudson, September 2021)

Liu’s father, a children’s book author, introduced him to Western literature at a young age, fuelling his curiosity and imagination. For much of Liu’s formative years, the Western literature in his father’s collection was proscribed. The unforgettable experience of devouring Western literature in secret had inspired his Banned Books series. In Banned Book No. 2 (2008), a young woman is portrayed lying on her stomach reading intently as she uses her fingers to keep her place in the middle of a book, presenting the woman as an active intellectual.

After studying at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and the Berlin University of the Arts, the artist has developed a personal distinct style that often gives rise to unconventional pictorial compositions that challenges the viewers’ visual expectations. Liu draws on disparate influences that range from the contemporary cultural icon Miffy the rabbit as seen in the acrylic painting Miffy the Artist (2013), as well as from the classical compositions of Old Masters like Rogier van der Weyden, as seen in Book Painting No. 14 Rogier van der Weyden (2016).

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The diverse points of reference that inform Liu’s artistic output have resulted in a rich repertoire of works that are abound in historical allusions and yet in a manner singularly his own.

In Qi Baishi Knows Mondrian (1996), the revered Chinese ink master Qi is clad in a flowing traditional long robe, smiling benignly as he tilts his head slightly, unruffled by the disconcerting scene behind him. In the distant background, clouds in ominous red are juxtaposed against a saturated, cobalt blue sky, producing a stark contrast. Red is a powerful primary color often employed by the artist and a hue representative of revolutionary China. A fleet of fighter jets, aligned towards a common target, fly through the sky. It appears that one has been shot and swiftly descending in flames. Standing on a raised stone pedestal, Qi Baishi is given a pair of white angel wings as if to elevate the esteemed artist as an immortal while his right hand holds a small book with Mondrian’s design.

It is only when considering Liu’s uncanny compositions as an integrated and coherent entity instead of numerous isolated symbols or a potpourri of discrete elements can one learn to appreciate the Chinese artist’s curious ability to conflate his diverse influences and translate the results into a highly distinctive style.


Phyllis Teo is an art historian and writer currently based in Singapore. She is the author of Rewriting Modernism: Three Women Artists in Twentieth-Century China (Leiden University Press, 2016).