BLOOD TEMPTATION - AN INTERVIEW WITH LIU QIMING

Artist:Liu Qiming(here we use:LIU)

Reporter: Cao Xiaoguang "World Art" magazine (here we use:CAO)

CAO：Mr. Liu, your artworks in recent years are very interesting, with Chinese style, very poetic, deep melancholy. This is quite different from current popular contemporary art.

LIU：Yes? That is to say very lyric.The so-called "contemporary art" is to reject the lyric.(smiling)

CAO：I feel your artworks mainly focus on reflection and criticism on centralization. Is that right?

LIU：Criticism? How can I dare? Facing power discourse, what I do is only showing people to see what they have done with my own way.

CAO：Mr.Liu, your artworks don’t directly describe the incidents, but they tend to make the audience get the realistic feel, giving more memorable, quite humorous, but no prank. Can you talk about something on how does your creating thinking form?

LIU：It’s not that humorous,but indeed without prank. While creating, I’d like to record it with a seemingly easy, long-distanced, observing way,rather than directly describing the current life. I think perhaps when we are in life itself,we are always slow or vague. Therefore, I will always touch the lives with a memorable way in a period of time.

CAO：Can I say that you are an artist on historical themes? Just like "revolutionary model," "My 1989" and other artworks, from the names they are indeed have the trace of historical themes.

LIU：I do not like to simply trace back or describe history, because reality itself is only a mirror for the diversity of history, and past and future are in fact repeat and duplicate simple and mechanical in today.The only significance of my choosing figure symbol or artworks’ name labelled with a specific era is to convey my understanding and judgement to the current life through by using the condensed information of its symbolic nature and the implicit meaning.

CAO：What do you think is the main impact on your art creating?

LIU： About impact, it owes to that old saying "art originates from life." While,since the so-called civilization, the greatest impact on life is politics. It infiltrates in every aspect of our lives, like an invisible hand to control our thinking and behavior. As we have become accustomed to our lives, unknowingly be aware of, not escaping. Although it always happens in our lives in terms of some specific things,in the process of our growth we become used to accepting and recognizing them. It always make you agree with their interests and accept their values by brainwashing,such is politics.

Therefore, the "art originates from life," and art should reflect life, in this way we should not simply describe what we see, but digging out and perform those controlling our life,and I think the later is the art depth people talk about.

CAO： I've learnt that in the "art of China - An Interview with Liu Qiming," you said "specific political society gave my life an invisible pressure. In the artworks, tornadoes, mushroom cloud with rampant destruction and violence And Tiananmen Square constitute a particular internal harmonyfor an era. "Now I can understand the meaning.You also said that "in the arttworks, people are only samples." Does this mean the same thing?

LIU：Individuals are not that significant! Faced with fate,individuals are always controlled by the strength of the invisible things. Of course, these intangible things also include religion, and culture. Our living in it is just like being suspended by a thread, and life and destiny are dancing in that thread or line.

CAO： "Dancing on a thread" seems interesting. In your painting red flag, red scarf, and the red underwear are the common images, do they have anything to do with each other?

LIU：Each of them is a piece of cloth, the debris behind loftiness and passion. loftiness and passion are cost of blood, and in the history of human history . There is no exception.Blood, is the symbol of life, is also the symbol of violence and bloodshed.blood temptates our every nerve.

CAO：(smiling) If I had the opportunity to plan your exhibition, I would certainly choose "dancing in a thread" or "blood temptations" as the theme.

LIU：That’s okey. Perhaps you could.(smiling)

CAO：I believe that the audience can perceive from your artworks that you are an artist wtih great sense of social responsibility. In your opinion, is social responsibility Important to an artist?

LIU：Being important or not is not the problem,but in think first of all in society an artist should be an independent intellectual. Social responsibility is always a basic yardstick to measure an artist. "How to create art" is a methodological issue, while "what to create" is an attitude problem. " Social responsibility" is a bacic principle to judge people engaged in arts an artist or not.

CAO：I agree with you on this point. Is there anything typical affecting your creating? Can you talk about it?

LIU：There are many,and I can simply say something to you, which directly affect my judgement to life and my chocice on art. For example, in my junior high school graduation, because of resistance in the examinations, i was expelled from the membership of Chinese Communist Youth League. And,In June in 1989,my elder brother joining the army less than half a year told me not to take part in assembly or meetings, or else it would be dangerous. Because he was on the spot.

CAO：All these happened before you go to college. Is there anything related after you go to college?

LIU：In college I am fortunate to encounter a number of very good teachers like Zhang Xiaogang, Ye Shuai (Ye Yongqing) and Wang Lin and so on,and they had great impact on me and gave me great help. At that time they had many activities, such as "China's experience" exhibition "Art literature Exhibition." Teaching in Sichuan Fine Arts Institute is also more open, students who love art often gathered together to discuss art regardless of grade boundaries. So I held the first exhibition "(out) radon tritium (in)" Oil Painting Exhibition on my graduation in 1995 in the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts. At that time, facing reality and ideals, East and West, traditional and modern culture, I was in chaos and confusion. I tried to use the detained awkward state "out and in" to convey my sentiment and art thinking during that peiiod of time in Academy of Fine Arts Institute.

CAO：You worked on the plateau area in those years, what impact does it have on your current creating?

LIU：When graduating in 1995, I came to the Aba City College of the Arts to be a teacher in Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province in Wenchuan County in the dream of searching for my soul home in that strong Tibetan Buddhism Cangqiang highland areas. But soon I found I was wrong.The sky in plateau is always blue, but the air is stifling.Plateau isn’t a charming landscape for writer and political needs to eulogize.

CAO：Did you want to leave there?

LIU：I did think of leaving. At that time, I wrote to my school mate Feng Zhengjie who just arrived in Beijing to express my thought of being professional artist in Bejing. But later I learnt the news that artists in Yuanmingyuan were expelled.Then,I established my own studio in Chengdu, often shuttling between Aba plateau and Chengdu Plain.

CAO：That must be very tired!

LIU：Yes,Tired,but happy as well. I organized some activities there,and also gained the support from Wang Lin.I remember when we engaged in "Gao Yuanhong" art studio, Wang Lin encouraged me in his letter "though in the periphery, man should focus on the world!" The sentence is still constantly encourages me.

CAO：why did you leave there later?

LIU：Faced with the embarrassing lack of religious culture and shackles of frustration with the system, I experienced five years of application for leaving, but ultimately failed. At last, I left Aba Teachers College with the results ”three-no”.

CAO：What does ”three-no” mean?

LIU：That Is out of the state system. "Three" is China's system of population management of the three chains, "the archives, wages, household registration relations."

CAO：You returned to Chengdu?

LIU：No, I came back to my home in Mianyang City. My friends encouraged me to set up a private university with him(Mianyang Science and Technology City, branch of Sichuan Institute of Education )in the dream of saving China's education through private schools. Finally i found it was just a hoax. leaving the plateau back to the city, Those years I was often in panic, feeling it wasn’t my life.Although the daily life continued,I felt hard to adjust to it,being an outsider. Life was like fallen leaves floating in the water.

CAO：It’s what we feel when see your artworks” floating” series. In2002, you went to Institute of the Arts in Southwest University of Science and Technology to teach?

LIU：Yes, I became director there.

CAO：With "three-no" identity,could you enter the school system?

LIU：Yes, this is unique in China. The leader had the final say.

CAO：Since you had been director, you should achieve your education ideal?right?

LIU：That was even worse. In those years, I almost turned mad. Being at loss to the reality and teaching something mechanically against my wil,starch evaluation and machine-made paper,no pomission to creativity. All was for data and standardization.The so-called art education in the University was just like a torii of a whore. That was a completely false life. That stage I chose bright and abstract colors to whitewash and escape my life, but,it was a failure again. Escaping will never solve the problem.

CAO：It seems that you’re really not suited to living in institution. So in 2006 you came to Beijing.right?

LIU：Yes, it’s lucky that I can do the things I like,besides,I can support my family.

CAO：Now,you should feel free.

LIU：Free? Just in terms of physical restraints?

CAO：Why do you say so?

LIU：For example, I told you a story which happened in my family last year. On April 10, 2007, my father escorted my mother to hospital for treatment of asthma, but, when they transferred in the hospital,the oxygen bottle was empty in the ambulance which caused my mother’s dying from suffocation. All the evidence were on the table,but the hospital arbitrarily denied the facts. Later, in a host of facts and evidence, with the help of many friends including the media,the hospital had to admit all the facts. After mediation, according to Chinese law the compensation standards (the compensation standard for urban and rural accounts is different) in rural areas accounts, the hospital gave basic compensation 45,000 yuan, and this issue concluded. The hospital didn’t have the basic spirit of repentance, till now they still refused to give our familiy a basic humanitarian apology!

Ironically, people in charge of the case in the hospital weren’t be punished at all. On the contrary, the nurses in the ambulance were expelled from the hospital, for the fact she had reminded the doctor the oxygen bottles anaerobic in the ambulance, ultimately she become the key witness in the case and the one testimony…

CAO：This is quite regrettable! In China such a thing is too many.

LIU：Yes, very helpless. This is what I must face the life and destiny. Therefore, I will also present the exhibition to my mother.

CAO：You experienced so much, but your artworks aren’t negative. A little sad in them,we feel a sense of hope and strong vitality.

LIU：Yes, the value and significance of life are above all.

CAO：Will you dabble in other ways in your creating?

LIU：Yes, I prepare to do some photos and videos. Any art form has its irreplaceable advantages and limitations of their own as well, I am very interested to try some new things.

CAO：Great. We look forward to seeing your new artworks! Thank you Mr.Liu.

Apr 16, 2008