Recently, “IN THE HEART OF THE BRONZE: A Liu Shiming Experience”, which is the 9^th overseas solo exhibition of the outstanding Chinese sculptor Liu Shiming, was held at the Western University (University of Western Ontario) in Canada. Through his sculpture works which transcend time, culture, and identity, especially his famous "China Practice" works—a series of small sculptures that combine personal experience, aesthetic creativity, and cultural experience together, Liu Shiming has again touched the hearts of viewers who are in completely different spatial, time, geographical, and cultural states.

As one of the first group of sculptors cultivated by the Central Academy of Fine Arts (abbr. CAFA) after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Liu Shiming's career was closely related to the birth of modern Chinese sculpture. However, due to various complex factors such as the special historical situation of China in the mid-20^th century and his own personal experience and spontaneous choices in work creation, Liu Shiming has long been an overlooked figure in the history of Chinese sculpture. As the academic circles deepen their research on the history of sculpture so in recent years have seen a growing recognition of Liu Shiming's exploratory contributions to modern Chinese sculpture.
 

01. Academic Lineage: From Rodin, Bouchard, and Wang Linyi to Liu Shiming

In any attempt to examine the influence on Liu Shiming’s early training in sculpture, we will find that French realism is only a part of such influence. Modern Chinese sculpture emerged in the early 20^th century, when the first group of Chinese students of sculpture went to study in the West then proactively introduced the Western sculpture system into China. From Li Tiefu in the early days to Liu Kaiqu, Wang Linyi, Zeng Zhushao, Hua Tianyou, Wu Zuoren, Wang Ziyun, among others, most of these students who studied sculpture in France and Japan returned to China and joined various art colleges in the country to set up sculpture departments and train Chinese sculptors. In 1946, Liu Shiming was admitted to the National Beiping Art School and studied under China’s first group of modern sculptors Wang Linyi, Hua Tianyou, and Zeng Zhushao. In terms of technique, style, and philosophy, he did not only benefit from the solid realist skills of the French academic school brought back by his three teachers from École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, but also inherited the Rodin sculpture system that still dominated both inside and outside the French academic school in the early 20^th century.
 
Wang Linyi, Hua Tianyou, and Zeng Zhushao all studied under Henri Bouchard. Liu Shiming’s early training in sculpture was mainly influenced by French realism, but it was also mixed with more complex artistic elements such as the Gothic artistic style that profoundly influenced Bouchard's works and French social realist art, just like Bouchar’s “socialism-oriented” sculpture works [1], which favored portraying the common class and the lower class of society, such as reflecting farmers, fishermen, and workers, once influenced Wang Linyi's socialist inclinations in his thematic works such as National Unity and Returning to the Embrace of the Motherland. [2]
Emphasizing the shaping of the body of sculpture as an important feature of the French realistic sculpture tradition, and this influence is also reflected in academic teaching at CAFA. It can be seen from Liu Shiming’s recollections of the teaching of his three teachers in his memoir. For example, he recalled, “Mr. Wang Linyi repeatedly reminded me, ‘You need to pay attention to the sense of weight.’ A few days later, when he saw my sculpture, he told me, ‘You need to pay attention to the overall shape.’” Mr. Hua Tianyou once taught him the "small-point ball collection method" of the French academic school. Liu Shiming summarized it like this, "Mr. Hua's technique is a blend of Chinese and Western elements, with Chinese elements at the mainstream and Western elements as the reference. In Mr. Hua's works, one can see how he organizes the sculpture structure into several major facets to make the form look strong and powerful, as well as the beauty of a properly constructed composition.” It was also Mr. Hua who absorbed traditional Chinese sculpture techniques and created the "basket weaving method" which stressed the use of lines. From the direction of Chinese culture, this inspired Liu Shiming's perception of national art, promoting him, with his mastery of the language of Western modern sculpture, to further understand his own cultural positioning and direction of exploration. In 1955, Liu Shiming became Mr. Zeng Zhushao's assistant. He still remembers Mr. Zeng teaching the technique of three points forming one side in his human portrait class. By repeatedly searching for the interweaving relationship between the blocks, “plane is created out of no plane. So, Mr. Zeng said what he created was an invisible plane. It was not a round and soft one, but a unified and real image of an old man with bones inside and facial features outside”, to create a strong, vivid, and realistic character statue.
Influenced by French realist techniques and artistic ideas, Liu Shiming's student career fell into the stage of the "Mao Zedong era after the founding of the People’s Republic of China" as defined by Mr. Zou Yuejin. Under the guidance of several teachers and driven by his natural artistic instinct, Liu Shiming developed his sculpture skill and style as being strong in the creation of “facets” [3], as manifested in his specific works. For example, Splitting the Mountains to Let the Water Flow that he created in 1958 was full of a revolutionary and romantic spirit. Combining a solid and powerful styling, the surging dynamic posture of the character, and an extraordinary imagination together, the work constructs and conveys a certain kind of inner passion.

As a monumental sculpture, the work showcases a familiar rough passion and exaggerative techniques that emphasize imagination, which instantly reminds people of Antoine Bourdelle, another master who deeply influenced Liu Shiming's teacher Wang Linyi. As Rodin's most famous student, Bourdelle was once an assistant to Rodin. Today, in Bourdelle’s famous sculpture works such as The Great Warrior of Montauba and Hercules the Archer, one can vaguely see from the similar style of "sculptures depicting the intensity of survival" [4] the pursuit of volume and quantity that Liu Shiming may have indirectly learned from the generation of his teachers who returned to China from studying in France, as well as their use of exaggerative and deformative techniques that are not completely detached from the real world, which are used to explore the origins of the expression of the core humanistic spirit in monumental sculptures.

02. Civic Perspective, Daily Life, and Tactile Perception

Apart from the influence on techniques, how has Liu Shiming inherited the ideals of Zeng Zhushao, Hua Tianyou, Wang Linyi, Liu Kaiqu, and others in developing modern Chinese sculpture? What explorations has Liu Shiming made in the development of contemporary Chinese sculpture? How can we understand the modern factors explored in Liu Shiming's artistic works? What exploratory paths can they still offer as implications for the present day?

The question firstly concerns how to define the starting point of modern Chinese sculpture. There are currently two main theories in academic circles about when modern sculpture started in China. One view is that it began in the 1920s when the Western sculpture system was introduced to China by the first group of Chinese students studying abroad, and modern Chinese sculpture started basically in synchronization with modern Chinese art. Another view is that modern Chinese sculpture commenced in the 1990s when Chinese sculptors showed more self-awareness towards the modernist context. [5] The definitions of "modern" are vague and varied. If we take the view that "Some art that is rarely connected to previous art forms or even forms a state of breakage from them is called ‘modern’" [6], namely the birth of new art form, then it may not be inappropriate for looking at sculptures that actually appeared since the 1920s as the beginning of modern Chinese sculpture. If we further place Liu Shiming in the modern coordinate system of the birth of this new art form, one of the modern factors contained in his explorations may be roughly summarized as a choice of work creation from a civic perspective. Liu Shiming has a very clear idea of this, saying: "I belong to the thought and social class of the common people, and I have always stood alongside working people to see things." [7]
Specifically in his works, this manifests as a civic perspective that the artist himself still holds even when dealing with grand historical events and mythological themes. This is evident in the images of three old candid farmers portrayed in his work Measuring the Land which Liu Shiming created in 1949, which portrayed the land reform movement in China, and in Splitting the Mountains to Let the Water Flow, which portrayed a great civilian hero as a tribute to the July 1 birthday of the Communist Party of China. The latter not only combines the techniques of traditional Chinese colored sculpture with Western sculpture, making it a pioneering work of modern Chinese colored sculpture, but also portrays a heroic spirit and an image of the extraordinary power of splitting the mountain to let the water flow. It is also widely believed to represent the image of working people on the land of Yan and Zhao (i.e. Hebei Province in northern China) rather than the heroes in mythology. It was precisely for this reason that when many statues across the country were damaged during the Cultural Revolution, the sculpture Splitting the Mountains to Let the Water Flow was well preserved. The similar exaggerated techniques and civic perspective may remind people of another sculpture full of satire and animation by Daumier, known as the pioneer of modern sculpture. From the works of the two artists which have vastly different themes, people can see a certain artistic attitude that deviated from traditional sculpture right from the start of material selection.

Moreover, the artist attaches great importance to daily themes and selects materials accordingly. On the one hand, based on his life experience and out of consideration for convenient work creation, Liu Shiming chose more convenient clay materials to create smaller works as China entered a new stage of reform and opening-up. He did not rely on sketches but more on the re-instillation of emotions and memories. Therefore, his works often rely on a quick capture of emotions and memories. Combining traditional hand sculpture in folk art, it facilitated the artist to capture inspiration in fragments from his life experiences, thus giving rise to a certain "sketching" factor and highlighting a form of modernity that occurs between theme and material. Richard Vine, an internationally renowned contemporary art critic, saw a parallel relationship between material and theme in Liu Shiming's clay sculpture works: "The theme comes from daily life, and the material comes from everyday clay." [8] Vine saw a Duchamp-style impulse to overthrow a certain established tradition bound to materials. This factor, which does not pursue a sense of completion in the classicism but instead goes for immediacy or even has a certain characteristic of recording, also this once appeared in many Western modernist artists such as Degas, Matisse, and others. They, like Liu Shiming, mastered artistic skills but chose to actively break from tradition. Perhaps this is not a coincidence, but more out of a desire for "innovation", which is a fully modern inner need.

Just like the group of distinctive small sculptures created by Matisse, such as Sitting Nude and Reclining Nude, which aims to express the muscle tensions of the human body through body twisting, Read believes that Matisse enhanced the tactile sense of sculpture through small sculpture works with an expressionist tendency, thus tapping into the sensory value that sculpture art may carry. [9]

Liu Shiming also uses small pottery sculptures and adopts a method of swift and improvisational creation to guide the viewer's attention to the surface of the works, creating a unique "tactile perception" by adding a pottery-based granular texture of pottery and traditional Chinese folk hand sculpture. This is particularly reflected in his works that can best convey his daily life observations. Through the creation of small pottery works including Woman Vendor, Repairing Shoes, Kaifeng Handcart, A Farmer on His Way to Market , and Bathtime, Liu Shiming became more deeply aware of the intrinsic connection between technique, material, and theme expression –“These lively men and women are deeply imprinted in my memory, and they are also the source of my work creation. I do not limit my pottery works to any specific form, and I use any clay that is available to me. I cannot hold back the urge to quickly produce the images from my memory and instantly squeeze them out in the fastest way possible. I do not want meticulous and complete forms, but only to vividly create the characters in my mind." [10] With specific materials and methods, Liu Shiming has utilized the special textures on the surface of pottery clay strips to quickly capture the relaxation and vividness that occur in the dynamic moments of the human body, thereby causing the audience to experience and imagine between the material, the body, and life experience.

03. Eclecticism and "China Practice"

Liu Shiming’s important contribution as recognized by most researchers is what is called "China Practice", which he has comprehensively been instilled with from traditional Chinese folk art forms, including sculpture, Chinese opera, and music. Just like Rodin, Bouchard, Bourdelle and other modern sculpture pioneers who returned to the Renaissance and even medieval art, or modern artists such as Picasso, Gauguin, and Henry Moore who exhibited an eclecticist attitude of free borrowing and integration of various art forms and styles, Liu Shiming has returned and attempted to develop specific techniques and extracted artistic elements from traditional Chinese sculpture. His experience of restoring cultural relics at the Museum of Chinese History from 1975 to 1979 gave him conscious and selective access to the simplistic and exaggerative aesthetics of Han dynasty figurines. By studying the characteristics of ancient Chinese sculpture, he deepened his understanding of the aesthetic views and craftsmanship styles of ancient Chinese people. He marveled at the transformation, imagination, and grandeur of Shang Dynasty bronze artifacts, the imposing presence of stone figures and beasts in Song Tombs, and the expression of strength and speed in Han Dynasty sculptures. Ancient Chinese art used an extremely subtle, solemn, and serene way to express the inner world of the depicted objects in a certain internal language. The various types of vivid portrayal of the ancient working people intoxicated Liu Shiming. He once exclaimed, "In the imitation process, I deeply felt that my sculpture method was not good. The ancient people had a profound understanding and acquired flexible and free techniques. I profoundly know that my techniques are not precise, not mature, not bold, not comprehensive, and inadequate to express what I want to convey."[11]  
Based on reflections on his previous artistic techniques and ideas, Liu Shiming began to become freer from confinement to the techniques per se. Many of his works, such as Man Playing Suona1, Man Playing Suona 2, Someone Who Wants to Fly, Roaring River Rushing Toward the East , and Ansai Waist Drummer, all bear traces of traditional Chinese art. This allowed Liu Shiming, who has invisibly inherited the humanistic spirit and sensitivity to tactile perception in Rodin's sculpture art, as well as the realistic techniques of the French academic school, to further combine various complex artistic influences with China's social reality, cultural roots, and daily experience, and follow his artistic impulses to create his own sculpture works. It also turned Liu Shiming's sculpture practice into a unique model of the blending of Western techniques and Eastern artistic connotations in the early stages of modern Chinese sculpture, while widening the distance from the Soviet-style sculpture that profoundly influenced the Chinese art establishment at the time. It enabled Liu Shiming to spontaneously blaze a unique path of sculpture thinking, thus opening up the space for further collision and interpretation of Liu Shiming's works in different periods and cultural scenarios.
   

Editor’s note: Richard Vine, the former managing editor of Art in America, visited Beijing in November 2023, following his first encounter with Chinese sculptor Liu Shiminng's work at Rutgers University. In this exploratory tour in Beijing, Mr. Vine was intensely involved with artworks, sketches, archives, and documentaries featuring various stages of Liu’s life and artistic career. In addition, he also communicated with some of Liu’s relatives, friends, and colleagues in person.


 
On November 13th, CAFA ART INFO invited Mr. Vine for an interview. Discussing his ongoing critical biography of Liu Shiming, Vine shared his initial thoughts regarding Liu’s art at the very beginning of this interview. We realized that Vine was exposed to the rich resources of Liu Shiming during his visit to Beijing this time, including Liu's diaries, sketches, and small-scale clay sculptures, which are difficult to transport internationally due to their fragility. Vine blended his background in literature and his interests in country-and-western music with these resources in the interchange, extensively examining the external and internal forces that motivated Liu to make his life choices. Furthermore, he analyzed Liu’s art from the early days when the artist received his academic training through the latter periods in which he depicted daily life, folk culture, and other motifs.

Vine analyzed Liu's art from a fresh perspective by relating its concerns and empathy with ordinary people to Western literature and art movements. He also gave insights into the recent international cross-cultural exhibitions and academic events organized by the Liu Shiming Art Foundation. Vine inspires us to juxtapose Liu’s art with the recent critical issues in the West, such as folk art, Outsider Art, and identity aesthetics. By doing so, both the “Chinese-ness” and the universality of Liu’s work can be translated appropriately to a global context.

1. A Critical Biography

CAFA ART INFO: How did you start learning about Liu Shiming? What was the first occasion for you to explore Liu Shiming and his art? What were your initial thoughts upon seeing his work?

Richard Vine: I was introduced to several Foundation members through a mutual friend. He Miao, an artist here in China recommended that we should meet. People in the Foundation kindly invited me to the Liu Shiming exhibition at Rutgers University in September. That was my first exposure to the work itself. Later on, we met at the Foundation office in New York.
 

Exhibition View of “LIU SHIMING: Life Gives Beauty Form”, Rutgers University, 2023

CAFA ART INFO: I learned that you are going to write a book about Liu Shiming. What attracted you to start and proceed with your writing?

Richard Vine: Like many other people, I was initially struck by the simplicity and the genuineness of the work. I have a so-called “fancy life” in the art world, traveling around to various countries, giving talks, attending opening and dinners, etc. But originally, I came from a typical working-class family. My father had to leave school at the age of 14 to work. My grandfather was a coal miner who went to “the pits” when he was 12 years old. There was a real personal connection for me to the life that Liu Shiming portrayed. Also, I have an unusual taste in music. I like American country-and-western music, which few people in the art world can tolerate. Country music is very simple. There is a joke in the business that a country song is three chords and the truth. That is the quality that I responded to Liu Shiming’s works.

CAFA ART INFO: Can you share more about the book? Will it be a critical book or other types of book?

Richard Vine: This book is going to be a critical biography. Liu Shiming’s life was very fascinating, and intimately related to his work. You really cannot separate the two. The approach will be chronological. At the end of the book, I will have some sections positioning Liu’s work critically and art historically, making some parallels between Eastern and Western art history.

CAFA ART INFO: What specific perspective are you going to use to step into Liu’s life and art?

Richard Vine: Naturally, I am fascinated by several unusual decisions that Liu Shiming made. For example, in 1961, he gave up a very comfortable position in Beijing and went off to the countryside. Then there was the decision to suppress his formal training—not to forget it, but to keep it in the background while seeking his own simplicity of form. None of his decisions were made to gain advantage or privilege in life, but rather to dedicate himself completely to his work. He was very determined. On the outside, he was gentle and kind; on the inside, he obviously had a very strong will to make his works in his own way.
 
CAFA ART INFO: You just mentioned Liu's choices throughout his life. When making decisions, the artist was profoundly influenced, on the one hand, by Chinese traditional art. On the other hand, artists such as Liu must be influenced by the specific political and social environment of their time. What are your thoughts on this?

Richard Vine: I think we can only infer, since I have not yet come across an explicit explanation in the diaries or letters. However, if you look at the patterns of these decisions, it seems that he is very much wanted to be a self-directed artist. He could have had a fine career—and a very comfortable life—simply doing commissioned projects. But something moved him to say no. Again, I can only guess. At the time, there was a lot of propaganda work celebrating the nobility of workers, soldiers, and peasants. At first, Liu helped to produce such projects. But I suspect he came to feel that such work was not truly genuine. I think he took to heart the inner message of the era’s ideology—the vital importance of common people—rather than its outer visual rhetoric.

II. Exploring Trip in Beijing

CAFA ART INFO: Regarding your visit in Beijing this time, I'm sure you came across a wider range of Liu's work and archival materials. Could you please share your insights from this exploration trip with us? Is there any fresh inspiration?

Richard Vine: The other day, we looked at many of Liu’s writings, drawings, and sketches, which are extremely interesting—very energetic and charming. In the traveling exhibitions, the works mostly reflect everyday life. But when you see the full body of Liu’s work, you realize that he also explored history, mythology, opera, and so on. But the consistent factor in all of this is his ability and determination to step outside himself. It is a kind of paradox in his nature that, on the one hand, he is really determined, really self-directed. On the other hand, his purpose is to explore the life of other people.

As a Westerner, this reminds me of the split in the Romantic Movement during the late 18th and 19th centuries. The Romantic Movement has two streams. All Romanticism has to do with the self. However, one of the branches is about self-glorification: the artist as genius. Percy Shelley once said that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” They presume to set the moral agenda for all humankind. In his most famous poem, Song of Myself, Walt Whitman asserted, “I contain multitudes.” But there is another stream of Romanticism that flows from John Keats, who focused on what he called “negative capability.” This was essentially empathy, the ability to imaginatively put one’s self into another position or situation—even another being. One accepts uncertainties, without passing judgment. This is the capacity that great playwrights and novelists have, which enables them to portray many kinds of people, to get inside those people and understand them. Take Shakespeare. You can read a thousand of pages of Shakespeare's plays, finding many complex and colorful characters. But at the end of the thousands of pages, you may ask yourself: what did Shakespeare himself really believe? It is impossible to say, because he perfectly transposed himself into another world and all its inhabitants. Delve into Liu Shiming’s work and that, too, is what you find.


Richard Vine: In the clay works, there is a parallel between the material and the subject: the subject comes from everyday life, and the material is everyday clay. Some of Liu’s clay works are glazed, but most of them remain raw. In the West, for many centuries, we had the notion that only certain topics are suitable for the art, and they should be treated in the particular way with particular materials, especially “noble” materials like bronze, marble, silver, and gold. However, at the beginning of Modernism, that notion was overthrown. One of the striking examples is Duchamp’s Fountain. He just placed a urinal on its side and signed it with a pseudonym, which is a way of saying that anything can be art. That is one big step toward integrating life and art, which is a very important goal for many modern artists in the West. I believe this is close to the ethos of Liu Shiming’s clay works.


III. Tracing Liu Shiming’s Art

CAFA ART INFO: Liu Shiming’s early works clearly show that he was greatly influenced by the French classical style and academic training in China. However, he did not follow this tendency. What external and internal causes, in your opinion, drove him to modify his artistic style?

Richard Vine: It happens to many artists, particularly at the beginning of Western modernism. Artists were classically trained, accustomed to working from live models. The conventions of pose and treatment and materials had been repeated and repeated. In order to break away, people had to make art cruder, in a way, and yet more conceptually daring. Picasso did it, Matisse did it.

Again, there is a parallel in country-and-western music. In the old days, the classic background for a country singer was to grow up in the mountains with twelve brothers and sisters, to wear a potato sack to school, and so on. Then, one day, along comes Kris Kristofferson, whose father was a military officer—eventually a general. Kris was a literature major who won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford. Yet when he came back, instead of teaching literature at West Point as he was supposed to do, he quit the army and went off to become a country-and-western songwriter and performer. When highly trained people make a choice like that, it’s probably because they feel that simpler ways are more authentic. The whole point of poetry, after all, is to say the most in the fewest words. Liu Shiming, who was academy trained, made a choice to leave Beijing for the provinces, and ended up using the simplest materials to create an art of profound feeling.

CAFA ART INFO: Besides gaining life experience in rural China in Henan and Hebei, Liu worked at the National Museum of China, where he absorbed traditional sculptural techniques from repairing and replicating artifacts, such as figures from the Han dynasty and folk crafts, and therefore developed his own sculptural language. How do you understand these two stages in terms of shaping and developing Liu’s own artistic language?

Richard Vine: It is pretty obvious that when Liu went to the provinces, he found his true subject matter. I haven’t seen much of his work from that period. The examples we have date mostly from the mid-1970s, when he returned to Beijing, to his death in 2010. During his time at the museum, he was able to handle and examine ancient earthenware figures from the Han dynasty, figures that represent carrying the happiness life into the afterworld. Recognizing the enchanting quality of figures on a smaller scale may have given him the form that he needed. Most sculpture, by its very nature, tends to be large. It is mainly for public display, often outdoors, using durable materials like stone, bronze, or steel. Finding a modest scale and simple materials to express the simple life is key to Liu Shiming’s work.

CAFA ART INFO: Some people regard Liu's work as folk art. There may be an underlying feeling that his work is not "high art," due to its intimate relationship with ordinary people's everyday lives as well as its unglazed surfaces and rough texture, particularly in his late stage. How will you respond to this discussion?

Richard Vine: It’s ironic that, in Western art circles today, folk art has become a huge market. Now we have folk art museums, folk art education, and folk art fairs. We even have academy-trained young artists making what looks like folk art in a not-so-authentic way. When you encounter folk-style work by privileged art students, you’re always faced with the question of how to distinguish genuine feeling from a coolly calculated imitation of feeling. I think you have to look at the whole life of an artist. When you survey the entire life, and the entire oeuvre, of Liu Shiming, there is no doubt that he was sincere, and that he found his own genuine mode of expression.
 
IV. Understanding Liu Shiming in the Contemporary International Context

CAFA ART INFO: Liu Shiming's art has a distinctive style, with a rarely smooth and delicate surface. I believe his art is different from that of any other Chinese or Western artists you've encountered. How would you describe Liu Shiming's sculptural style? I feel it is difficult to identify/label him as a specific sort of artist. He is unique both in Chinese history and in Western history.

Richard Vine: I do not know if there is a particular category that he can fit. In Western art history, there are many moments that may help explain Liu Shiming in some way. You can go all the way back to the Egyptian tomb figures. People are familiar with the monumental statues of Pharaohs and their wives. However, in Egyptians tombs, there were also clay figures about everyday life, describing everything that can be carried on in the afterlife. The figures that Liu Shiming creates are also quite similar to some Gothic sculptures as well. One thinks of great cathedrals, huge stained glass windows, and the life-size statues of saints. But look closely and you will find everyday scenes portrayed in the corners, at the margins—scenes that contrast with, and provide a context for, the glory of the God. In the 19th century, there was a French art movement called the Barbizon School. Artists left the city and went out to the countryside to depict woods, fields, livestock, and farm workers. Also during the 19th century, social commentary artists chose themes that set in cities but portraying everyday folks, often in misery. Russia had a group called “The Wanderers” (Peredvizhnik). They traveled around capturing scenes of the common life as well. In the United States, we had the movement called “Social Realism,” which attempted to convey the realities of the Great Depression. There are lots of parallels and echoes between Liu Shiming’s works and these precedents. I wish I knew more about Chinese art history, to see if there are parallels there as well.

CAFA ART INFO: The Liu Shiming Art Foundation has introduced and promoted Liu's art globally in recent years through cross-cultural art exhibitions and a scholarship program. I'm curious how Western scholars, artists, and audiences see Liu's work. Is there a shared set of interests or points of view when it comes to understanding Liu's work?

Richard Vine: In the West, we have the phenomenon called Outsider Art. In the late 19th century, a German psychiatrist named Hans Prinzhorn was working in a mental hospital. He began to pay attention to the drawings of his patients and eventually wrote a landmark book on the topic. This inspired other artists and thinkers such as Jean Dubuffet to look at the art of people who are not trained in an art school and may be ill-adjusted to society. Previously, those works were just ignored. But people like Prinzhorn, Dubuffet, and the Surrealists began to realize the great value and great power of these untrained artists. Now it has become a major field of study. There is an Outsider Art Fair today that is exclusively for those untrained artists.

Obviously, Liu Shiming was not untrained, but he chose to adopt a style that is similar to that of untrained artists, at least superficially. However, if you look at the actual compositions of his works, the various animals and people in various combinations, you see that the relationships between the forms are quite subtle and sophisticated. In painting, people speak of positive space and negative space; in sculpture, of form and void. It would be very interesting to put Liu’s works side-by-side with works by untrained artists to see the similarities and differences.
 

CAFA ART INFO: From my observation, many of Liu’s overseas exhibitions are tied to community-based art practice, which is a completely different approach to curating Liu's exhibitions than we have in China or from a Chinese perspective. I'm wondering whether this means Liu's sculpture has the potential to activate a diverse community, although we've never recognized this character in the Chinese context.

Richard Vine: Today, there is a lot of emphasis on art and identity. In the past, art was only considered to be related to itself. When you entered the art world, you were supposed to leave your background behind and dedicate yourself to so-called elevated principles. But all of that has changed. Many artists today are looking for inspiration from their families and their ethnic backgrounds. Many major art institutions are now giving African American artists more chances than the art world ever gave them before. These artists are getting more exhibitions, and the critic pay careful attention to them. Certainly, “Chinese-ness” might translated very well in this context. All Liu’s works are universal, but they get to universality through particularity. That is probably is the very best way to do it.

CAFA ART INFO: Other than interacting with a dynamic and diverse community, what additional suggestions do you have for future exhibitions and art activities of Liu Shiming?

Richard Vine: As I mentioned earlier, I really like Liu Shiming drawings—even though, or maybe because, they’re so casual. I think we should bring more drawings and sketches to the exhibitions and maybe develop dialogues between the sculptures and drawings. Another possibility lies in the relation between Liu Shiming’s art and Outsider Art. I can imagine showing Outsider artworks and Liu Shiming’s works together. The third thing is more panel discussions. I think inviting more experts from various fields would be extremely helpful. Someone could talk about the relations between Liu Shiming’s art and Russian art, someone could talk about Gothic sculptures in relation to Liu Shiming’s art, and so on, and so on. Sometimes, fields that seem like very distant and dissimilar actually prove to be very provocative and stimulating. The art world operates on word of mouth. It is very important what people say, and who is saying it. More discussion generates a better reputation for any artist, and that in turn spurs more conversations.

About Interviewee：
Richard Vine is the former managing editor of Art in America. He holds a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Chicago and previously served as editor-in-chief of the Chicago Review and Dialogue: An Art Journal.

Vine has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the American Conservatory of Music, the University of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, the New School for Social Research, and New York University. Some 300 of his articles, reviews, and interviews have appeared in various journals, including Art in America, Salmagundi, the Georgia Review, Tema Celeste, Modern Poetry Studies, and the New Criterion, and in numerous art catalogues and critical compendiums.

His critical books include Odd Nerdrum: Paintings, Sketches, and Drawings (2001) and New China, New Art (2008), which traces the emergence of avant-garde art in China from 1976 to 2008. In 2013, Vine curated the international exhibition “Darkness Visible” at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing. “Golden Sections,” his ten-year survey of the work of Icelandic sculptor and architect Gudjon Bjarnason, was mounted in 2015 at the National Academy of Art in New Delhi, India. In 2016-17, he co-curated the group exhibition “Murder, She Said” at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York. Vine’s novel SoHo Sins, a murder mystery set in the New York art world of the 1990s, was released in 2016.
 

Invited by the Liu Shiming Art Foundation, Richard Vine traveled to Beijing as the field study for his upcoming publication. Richard Vine is a New York-based art critic and the former managing editor of Art in America. On November 9, 2023, he visited the Liu Shiming Sculpture Museum at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), China. His critical books include the career survey Odd Nerdrum: Paintings, Sketches, and Drawings (2001) and New China, New Art (2008), which traces the emergence of avant-garde art in post-Mao China. He has co-curated exhibitions at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing (2013), the National Academy of Art in New Delhi, India (2015), and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York (2016).
 
Vine's research field encompasses the contemporary Chinese art. Following his first encounter with Chinese sculptor Liu Shiminng's work at Rutgers University, Vine visited the exhibition “In the Heart of the Bronze: A Liu Shiming Experience” at Western University, Canada. He started this journey to China to explore Liu Shiming's art and his life experiences. Vine's upcoming publication will be a critical biography of Liu Shiming, focusing on his life experiences under different historical-political contexts of new China, positioning his artworks critically and art historically, and marking parallels between the Eastern and Western art histories.

The Liu Shiming Sculpture Museum is the most comprehensive permanent exhibition space, mainly collecting Liu Shiming's clay sculptures. The museum, renovated from the former sculpture factory of CAFA, spans two floors, offering an immersive experience for audiences to explore Liu Shiming's art from various periods.
 

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The collections depict multiple layers of the local people living in the Yangtze River and Yellow River basins of Henan and Hebei provinces, including Dream to Fly (1982), Gunagling San (1986), and Ansai Waist Drummer (1989), showcasing the local lives and traditional folk cultures of China. The museum's second floor is connected by a long rotating staircase constructed with scaffoldings, while the LED installations on the roof generate an ambiance reminiscent of the sky. These elements aim to reconstruct the scenes of Chinese folk lives that Liu Shiming continuously pursued and recalled in his artworks.



Vine remarks, "There is a parallel between the material and the subject: the subject that comes from everyday life, and the material that comes from everyday clay." The clay is, as he stated in the discussion, "an important entry point to understand Liu's art."



“The whole point of poetry is saying the most while using the fewest words.” Vine said in the interview, He added, “Liu Shiming did utilize the simplest material to do his art while containing the most profound feelings.”



Accompanied by Liu Wei, the son of Liu Shiming, CAFA's Professor Sun Wei, and representatives from the Liu Shiming Art Foundation, Vine found more parallels between Liu Shiming and the contemporary Western art world. From the artist's identity, the ecology, to the accessibility, he discovered themes in Liu Shiming's art and life experiences that can generate echoes among many Western audiences.



Vine proposed further expectations for the Liu Shiming Art Foundation in the United States. The Foundation could delve deeper into the connection between Liu Shiming and contemporary art, organize more exhibitions in higher educational institutions, and host more panel discussions to stimulate a broader conversation by scholars from various academic backgrounds.

Since its establishment in 1938, the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) has nurtured many painters, designers and performing artists with high quality art education. Since 1999, NAFA has received polytechnic-level funding from Singapore’s Ministry of Education. In 2011, NAFA became the first comprehensive arts education institution in Singapore to be awarded the four-year EduTrust certificate from the Council for Private Education (now known as Committee for Private Education). The establishment of the Liu Shiming Art Scholarship, in collaboration with the Liu Shiming Art Foundation, will enable more diverse support and possibilities for NAFA students.  
NAFA President Mrs Tan-Soh WaiLan mentioned in her speech that the support offered by Liu Shiming Art Foundation was undoubtedly significant for arts education in Singapore. The impact of the Foundation’s charitable giving extends beyond financial assistance. Its generosity provides students with invaluable access to quality education and training, helping them to wholeheartedly pursue their creative passions. Furthermore, it facilitates a deep connection among the students, the Foundation, and the community, which will be realized through mentorship programmes, art exhibitions, workshops, and more. Hence, students will gain valuable hands-on experience that will enhance the arts education experience, promote innovation, thereby enabling NAFA students to become influential contributors to the art circle.
 
The establishment of the Liu Shiming Art Scholarship will considerably energise the future of art education in Singapore as well as NAFA. President Tan-Soh WaiLan cordially invites the generous Foundation to join hands with NAFA and create a positive impact on the art scene in the region and beyond by encouraging students to fearlessly explore his/her exciting future in the world of art and creativity.  
Ms Sabrina Long, Dean of Faculty of Art & Design and Principal of the School of Young Talents, believes that the Foundation’s initiative to  set  up a scholarship at NAFA offers the students an opportunity to broaden their horizons, and encourages them to pursue the art of choice. The Scholarship not only helps to explore and develop the talents of students, but also injects new energy and influence into the arts ecosystem in Singapore. Such support is essential in nurturing talent, and many need it as recognition. It represents an incentive for them to challenge the norm, and remain creative, experimental, and innovative. Through close collaboration with NAFA and other organisations, the Scholarship will successfully raise more artists for the future by providing them with the space to grow and the motivation to strive forward. It takes dedication and the perseverance of young people to pursue a career in the arts. Ms Sabrina Long sincerely encourages   young   art majors  to  stay authentic  in their artistic pursuits, stay  true to their hearts, enjoy  the process,  and  do  their best  to  achieve success and recognition in the future.  
Ms Teo Elaine and Mr TangTian Li, the two recipients of the Liu Shiming Art Scholarship, expressed their deep appreciation for the generous support of the Foundation. They  said  that  the scholarship  not only enables them to focus on their  artistic pursuits, but also greatly reduces their financial burden.

 
Mr TangTian Li shared in an interview that, “This scholarship means a lot to me as a student in the art department. It shall provides me with the materials and tools for my ongoing art projects, and it allows me to better unleash my creativity. In addition, through the Liu Shiming Art Foundation, I have had the privilege of getting to know the Chinese sculptor Mr. Liu Shiming, whose exceptional   talent and creativity, plus his deeds, deeply  moved me. I am inspired and encouraged by his courage and determination. I believe Liu Shiming is a miracle. He expressed his own feelings, and he changed his art style with courage. His works connect the past and present of China.”  
Established in 2021, the Liu Shiming Art Foundation is a non-profit organisation named after the late renowned Chinese sculptor Mr Liu Shiming. The Foundation aims to study and showcase Liu’s artworks, share his noble artistic spirit, and promote international humanistic and artistic exchanges. The Foundation is committed to collaborating with institutions of higher learning around the world to provide scholarships and bursaries for young artists and to conduct international exchange programmes; and to create a global platform for cultural and artistic exchange to support research exchanges and project collaboration across countries and ethnic and cultural backgrounds. So far, twelve countries and regions including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Singapore, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, India and Hong Kong, China, along with more than thirty prestigious universities have joined this platform of exchange. The universities include Columbia University (USA), University of California, Los Angeles (USA), University of Sydney (Australia), The American University in Cairo (Egypt), The University of Auckland (New Zealand), National University of Singapore (Singapore), and The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong, China).  
In an era of deepening global cooperation and exchanges, understanding and appreciating works of art based on different cultural backgrounds is a significant way to promote international mutual understanding and friendship. This initiative by the Liu Shiming Art Foundation is not only a tribute to Mr Liu Shiming, but also an affirmation and promotion of Asian art in general. We look forward to seeing an even greater role that this Foundation will play and the greater contribution it will make to international cultural exchange  in the days to come.
 

On 31 July 2023, “Liu Shiming: Life Gives Beauty Form”, a retrospective exhibition of Liu Shiming’s sculptures, officially opened at the Mason Gross Galleries, School of the Arts, Rutgers University, New Jersey. This marks the eighth major solo exhibition of the late Chinese sculptor Liu Shiming in the United States.

As one of the earliest modern sculptors in China, Liu Shiming (1926-2010) established his own artistic characteristics and values by deep-diving into China’s local cultural resources, including the contemporary borrowing of traditional artistic techniques and Chinese cultural symbols, as well as the revelation of and reflection on contemporary social life. In recent years, the distinctive national characteristics and humanistic spirit embodied in Liu’s works have attracted the attention and sparked discussions in various cultural contexts, thereby creating new research perspectives to broaden the path of development for Chinese modern sculpture.
This retrospective presents 82 original sculptures and 12 paintings by Liu, 27 of which are being shown in the United States for the first time. Covering epic, mythological, and secular themes as well as everyday life, these works demonstrate Liu’s close observation and exploration of the human form and daily life. They subtly interweave elements of the past and present, reveal the time, culture, and artistic context where the artist was situated, while manifesting the traditions and realities that influenced the works.
On 31 July, during the summer vacation, Artists Mentoring Against Racism, Drugs, and Violence (AMARD&V) and the Mason Gross Galleries at Rutgers University hosted a summer program for youths, centered on the ongoing exhibition of Liu’s sculptures,  to promote cultural exchanges between China and the United States at a community level.  To start the event, Richard Siggillino, Director of the Mason Gross Galleries and curator of the exhibition, and Cassandra Oliveras-Moreno, Administrator of Communications and Collaboration in the Department of Art & Design at Rutgers University, led the children through a tour of Liu’s works, including a lively discussion of the artworks and the stories behind them.
Next, the clay sculpting workshop, instructed by Rutgers alumnus and artist Josh Araujo, allowed the children to experience first-hand Liu’s process of creating a sculpture, and encouraged them to explore what they wanted to express. At the beginning of the workshop, the children were a little shy and reserved in their first encounter with clay sculpting. With the guidance and encouragement of the professional instructor, they gradually found their way to interact with the clay. They started with basic shaping skills and gradually began to create freely. They co-operated with each other, and shared their creativity. Towards the end of the workshop, the children presented their works, some abstract and some vivid. They enjoyed their time in the workshop.
Claudio Mir, Artistic Director of AMARD&V, remarked that Liu’s works had an unusual beauty that transcended traditional notions of beauty and demonstrated a unique and creative artistic expression. They made people rethink the definition of beauty, and appreciate and celebrate the beauty of different forms of art. This event was the perfect way to encourage children to explore and express themselves through art. Claudio said, “Just as Liu Shiming’s sculptures convey life experiences, I hope that these children will reflect and ponder on their lives in the same way that Liu Shiming did. Most of these children come from families that have experienced the pain of immigration, and trauma is passed from one generation to another. Through this program, they learnt that life is not only limited to the limited space in front of them and around them. I hope they can think independently and elevate their self-awareness.”

He also expressed his gratitude for the event, as the clay sculpting workshop gave the children the opportunity to bring to life what they had in their minds. The process, though possibly different from the expected outcome, was full of joy, learning, and experiences that equip them to face life’s challenges. Through the specially designed youth summer program revolving around “Liu Shiming: Life Gives Beauty Form”, the participating children not only learnt about foreign cultures across the ocean and had new experiences in art creation, but also felt the power of art, explored self-expression and co-operation, and found new hope and courage in life and also the new pathways to realize their self-worth.

The opening ceremony of the exhibition, “Liu Shiming: Life Gives Beauty Form”, with a panel discussion was held in the Mason Gross Galleries of Rutgers University on the afternoon of 6 September. The exhibition remained on view until 22 September.

The 2023 Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Graduation Exhibition officially commenced on 24 June 2023 at the Art Museum of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Taking this  opportunity to announce the first awardees of the Liu Shiming Scholarship in Fine Arts and Jay Lau Ka-Chun was one of them.


Geoffery M. Glick, the Co-Chairman of the Liu Shiming Art Foundation, was the guest of honour presenting the awards. He expressed his deep impression of the master’s graduation exhibition at CUHK, believing that the students’ works transcended the boundaries within sculpture, painting, and printing. In an interview, he shared the goal and vision of the scholarship, “The Liu Shiming Scholarship in Fine Arts has been working with many universities around the world, and our goal is to establish one hundred different scholarships around the world, which will truly inspire the next generation of artists, art students and art history students.”


Meanwhile, Geoffery also shared his experience of viewing the MFA Graduation Exhibition. He remarked that the graduates’ comprehensive ability to not only create works, but also curate exhibitions, which was impressive. Many of the works gave the audience the possibility to view them in multiple dimensions and angles, and allowed them to have a dynamic and rich understanding of the materials, techniques, and concepts as they wander around the exhibition hall.  In Geoffery’s opinion, this was the mark of truly great works of art. The exhibited works transcended the boundaries within sculpture, painting, and printing. They proved that Hong Kong, China is an extremely vibrant city with outstanding young artists who should continue to be creative.


Jay Lau Ka-Chun, an MFA graduate, was surprised to be awarded the scholarship this year. He had always focused on his own creation, which was more about the transformation of space into ruins and illusion. According to Jay, “Although my works used to be mainly in the medium of printmaking, I now want to do more about the integration of printmaking and three-dimensional creation. Therefore, I am honoured that my creations are recognised by the Liu Shiming Art Foundation. Young artists are under great pressure in terms of time and money, and we need more space to create. Support such as the Liu Shiming Scholarship in Fine Art is critical and valuable, and I hope I can keep creating!” 

It is understood that the Liu Shiming Art Scholarship was established by the Liu Shiming Art Foundation to stimulate the research and creativity of young artists, art students and art history students worldwide. Currently, the Foundation has set up 39 scholarships in 12 countries around the globe. 2022, the Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding with The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) to provide scholarships to three outstanding graduates each year. In 2023, the inaugural Liu Shiming  Scholarship in Fine Arts at the CUHK was awarded  to  Jay Lau Ka-Chun, Leung Ching Man, and Cheung Tsz Ki.

 

Edited by CAFA ART INFO

On 3 June 2023, the Graduation Exhibition of the Fine Arts Department of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) officially opened, featuring the graduation works of 31 undergraduates. On the occasion of the opening, the Liu Shiming Scholarship in Fine Arts was also established at the CUHK, and Cheung Tsz Ki, an undergraduate student in the Department, became the first recipient of the Scholarship.





In an interview, Cheung shared how Liu Shiming’s works had inspired her creative journey, particularly Liu’s focus on social issues and people. She believed that art was an important means of expressing social consciousness and reflecting on the current state of society. Cheung drew inspiration from Liu’s honest and heartfelt approach. She particularly admires Liu’s focus on ordinary folks’ lives.
 

Cheung's unique artistic style has captivated audiences, especially her recent installation featuring a bed frame made of rigid steel rods and a concave hole sculpted from clay. Her choice to use clay as the core material reflects her belief in the sincerity and authenticity of the creative process. It is worth noting that Liu, too, primarily employs clay sculpture, as it faithfully captures the traces and impressions of the artist's hands, leaving a genuine imprint on the clay. Cheung finds this similarity with Liu profound, as both genuinely convey their feelings about the lives of people through their creations.

 

Professor Ho Siu-kee, acting chairman of the Department of Fine Arts at CUHK, appreciated the Foundation’s effort in providing significant support to students interested in and passionate about arts. He explained that creating sculptures in Hong Kong presented challenges due to spatial and material constraints. The Scholarship encouraged students to pursue large-scale three-dimensional artworks and unleash their passion for different forms of art creations. Professor Ho stressed the importance of allowing students to fully explore their potential.

 

Regarding plans for future art creation, Cheung revealed her intentions to utilize the scholarship to acquire materials and rent a suitable studio. These resources will enable her to continue her creative journey and invest more time in sculpting. She stated that her primary focus revolves around the themes of urbanism and people, believing that her artworks reflected the culture and spirit of her local environment. Just as Liu was devoted to promoting Chinese culture, Cheung expected that she would contribute to the promotion and preservation of her regional heritage.  promotion and preservation of the region’s heritage.
  Currently, the foundation has established an impressive 39 scholarships across 12 countries around the globe, with the Liu Shiming Scholarship at CUHK being a significant contribution to this cause.

It is learned that the Liu Shiming Art Foundation is the first non-profit organisation overseas to be named after a deceased Chinese artist. The Foundation aims to study and showcase the sculpture of Chinese sculptor Liu Shiming, share his noble artistic spirit, and promote international humanistic and artistic exchanges. Scholarships, grants, and exchange opportunities are provided to young artists in the universities around the world. So far, the Foundation has established 39 scholarships in 12 countries. In 2022, the Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding with The Chinese University of Hong Kong to provide scholarships to three outstanding graduates each year in the future.