HUNG LIU PROMISED LAND
HUNG LIU: PROMISED LAND Published by Rena Bransten Gallery on the occasion of an exhibition of the same name April 29 – June 3, 2017 All artworks © 2017 HUNG LIU “Painting History: Hung Liu’s Promised Land” © 2017 MARIA PORGES Artworks photographed by JOHN JANCA Designed by NICK STONE Rena Bransten Gallery 1275 Minnesota St San Francisco, CA 94107
ISBN 978-0-692-86813-3
HUNG LIU PROMISED LAND PAINTING HISTORY: HUNG LIU’S PROMISED LAND MARIA PORGES
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WORKS ON CANVAS
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WORKS ON PAPER 41 BIOGRAPHY 53
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PAINTING HISTORY: HUNG LIU’S PROMISED LAND
I. A picture is worth a thousand words. - proverb Chinese Socialist realism strove for a particular kind of perfection. Workers—their bodies and faces peculiarly aglow with shades of yellow, pink and orange (only warm hues, no greens or blues)—engage in labor for the good of all, exhorting the masses to do the same. At the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing, students producing these kinds of images were required to work from life, rather than photographs, as much as possible. When the subject was mining, Hung Liu and her classmates had to travel to the mines; when it was peasants
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in the fields, they were sent to study
So it is that, among the artists of her
farmers as they planted or cultivat-
generation, Liu is clearly one of only
ed, even though the resulting ruddy,
a few committed painters of modern
muscular figures bore little resem-
history. Her life and educational expe-
blance to what they had seen. What
riences suit her uniquely for the job,
they were creating was a form of his-
to which she has devoted decades of
tory painting that was both modern
both research and studio work. Born in
and ideologically correct.
Changchun, China in 1948 just before the inception of the People’s Republic,
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Once regarded as the most exalt-
Liu’s childhood coincided with a period
ed of all genres, history painting is
of prolonged and sometimes violent
defined as the depiction of one or
social change that encompassed both
several figures at a specific, high-
Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward
ly-charged narrative moment in the
and the Cultural Revolution. Sent to the
past, recent or distant: a once upon a
countryside for ‘re-education’ in 1968,
time, whether mythological or actu-
Liu spent four years farming. Later, after
al. Photography having largely taken
teaching children art for several years,
over the job of representing signifi-
she was admitted to study mural paint-
cant events, however, twentieth and
ing at the Academy. In 1984, after years
twenty-first century examples of this
of applying, she obtained a passport to
genre—aside from said works of So-
travel to California for further graduate
cialist Realism—are relatively sparse.
study in art at the University of Califor-
Anselm Kiefer’s operatic visions of
nia, San Diego. Although she has visited
Nordic mythology come to mind, or
China numerous times since then, the
Sandow Birk’s canvases chronicling
US has been her home since the day
an imaginary war between Northern
she arrived, in October of ’84, with two
and Southern California.
suitcases and $20.
For over three decades, Liu has pursued distinguished careers as both a professor of art and an exhibiting artist. She is widely known for her painterly reinterpretations of historical Chinese
II. A documentary photograph is not a factual photograph. –Dorothea Lange
photographs from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She
Over the years, Liu’s paintings have oc-
has used images of prostitutes and
casionally pictured Americans, includ-
of members of the last imperial court,
ing figures like Billie Holiday or Babe
pictures of prisoners, famine victims,
Ruth as well as anonymous immigrant
women soldiers, and more.
children. Recently, though, she has focused on a different kind of cultural
Liu admits that her initial attraction to
icon. In the summer of 2015, as she
working from photos might have de-
found herself thinking about the role
rived in part from rebelling against
that migrants and refugees have played
her education at the Academy, but
in American history, she began to study
something else has driven her as well.
the photographs of Dorothea Lange—
Few family albums remain in China.
drawn to them in part out of a sense that
Most were destroyed out of fear that
history is, once again, repeating itself,
the pictures would furnish evidence of
this time in the form of a worldwide ref-
forbidden social or political behavior
ugee crisis. As Liu studied Lange’s pic-
or the wrong class status, resulting in
tures of the victims of the linked disas-
punishment or execution. For Liu, re-
ters of Dustbowl and Depression, she
painting the images she has found in
learned about the woman behind the
archives is a way of recuperating her
camera as well: how Lange had walked
own past.
away from a successful portrait studio practice in San Francisco to spend the
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Dorothea Lange - Delta cooperative farm, Hillhouse, Mississippi, June 1937 “Clarence Weems, a young co-operator on the farm. He remembers the evictions in Arkansas, for his father was beaten and disappeared.� Library of Congress: Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, LC-USZ62-120503
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rest of her career documenting the dis-
departure for Liu. Exploring the work
enfranchised. Lange did not mean for
of a renowned artist and documentar-
her pictures to merely report the effects
ian who was also one of the twentieth
of the economic failures of the thirties
century’s most skillful propagandists is
(and, later, the internment of Japanese
very different from conjuring faces out
Americans).1 She meant to change the
of faded, blurred portraits found in ar-
hearts and minds of her viewers.
chives (the kind of images that Liu has most often used in the past).
Lange’s archives, including many unpublished images, reside at the Oak-
At the same time, essentially collaborat-
land Museum of California. Liu began
ing with such a figure seems like a pro-
to spend many hours there, looking
foundly natural extension of a lifelong
through binders of pictures and con-
project of picturing the dispossessed.
tact sheets. Over time, these sharp-
The ‘ghosts’ in Liu’s paintings are those
ly-observed images seemed increas-
pushed out to the margins of history,
ingly relevant to Liu’s own practice, as
whether by accident of birth or gen-
did the photographer’s intention to
der, or simply as the result of being in
bring compassion and dignity to her
the wrong place at the wrong time. Ad-
subjects. “Giving a human face to his-
ditionally, Liu finds echoes of her own
tory makes such a difference,” Liu in-
past in Lange’s uncompromising pic-
sists—“statistics go right past us, but
tures. Having lived through the famine
when we see the faces of the people
that killed tens of millions in rural China
who suffer, it means so much more.
between 1958 and 1962, experiencing
Lange’s migrant mother became a
both draconian rationing and years of
symbol of the Depression.”
unremitting farm labor, Liu—an American immigrant now for nearly half her
Using Lange’s photographs as source
life—not only sympathizes but empathiz-
material could be seen to be a major
es with Lange’s subjects.
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III. Propaganda... I don’t know, I never have been able to come to the conclusion that that’s a bad word. –Dorothea Lange
describes these boundaries of color as “hope, coming through the cracks between things”—suggesting the idea of a vivid emotional world behind the monochrome of these figure’s lives in makeshift tents and cabins.
In American Exodus, Liu’s first group
Fetching Water I, II, and III (all 2017)
of paintings based on Lange’s work,2
are based on Lange’s series of photo-
a soft, almost romantic palette of vio-
graphs showing children filling a bucket
lets and umbers predominates. Many
at a pump in the middle of a dusty field.
canvases feature one or two figures,
In all three paintings, Liu uses subdued
rendered in soft grays against simpli-
tones of bluish gray and green to de-
fied backgrounds. Billowing cumulus
scribe the shifting knot of little figures.
clouds or dandelions in several con-
Delineating their forms, however, are
tribute to a sense of elegiac reverence.
edges of red and orange, apple green and turquoise, simultaneously enliven-
In Promised Land, Liu’s approach—not
ing and abstracting the shapes of worn
only to Lange, but to painting itself— has grown deeper, moving forward into a new exploration of both content (many formerly unknown Lange images) and formal devices. The most distinctive of the latter is the infiltration of saturated color into figures and backgrounds, often in the form of outlines or slender but emphatic strokes. Liu
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Dorothea Lange - Untitled (Water Supply, American River Camp), November 1936 © The Dorothea Lange Collection, the Oakland Museum of California. Gift of Paul S. Taylor.
clothes and small bare legs. A toddler in the foreground clutches a doll, her face and body turned away from us. For Liu, this unidentifiable child has become a kind of touchstone. Lost to the tide of events like so many others, she nevertheless was a human being, alive in the world both before and after Lange’s shutter clicked. Three times, Liu paints her shoes an improbable shade of red, as if to draw our gaze to her and our thoughts to that invisible history. Lily Pad (2017) is a melancholy picture of an adolescent girl, legs curled under her in an old tire, her expression suggesting that she, too, is lost—in a dream of something unattainable. Both the plaid of her dress and the tread pattern on the tire are threaded with jiggling lines and amoeba-like marks of intense color, a flickering treatment that continues in the radically abstracted, rapidly-brushed background of weeds and shrubs. Like Chuck Close’s portraits, the image reads more clearly from a few feet away, beginning to break up into its constituent parts up close. 11
Detail from August (2017)
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Perhaps the most startling exploration
departure for improvisation allows her
of this almost topographical treatment
to imagine further details that Lange
of form can be seen in the portrait of
was unable to gather in her documen-
a very young African American man ti-
tation of a scene. Because her paint-
tled Laborer: Farmhand (2016). A del-
ings draw attention to issues dear to
icate spider web of brightly-colored
Lange’s heart, Liu believes that the
lines covers his face and hair. Some
photographer would have approved
follow the contours of his features,
of what she is doing. Liu points to
while others seem to suggest charac-
another quote from Lange that she
ters in a secret language. He looks at
has found inspirational: “I had to get
us steadily, but it’s almost impossible
my camera to register the things that
to return his gaze, distracted as we are
were more important than how poor
by the subtext of color that transforms
they were—their pride, their strength,
Lange’s original image, building an-
their spirit.” In her paintings, Liu strives
other story around it.
to do the same.
IV. Photography takes an instant out of time, altering it by holding it still. –Dorothea Lange
As Lange’s words assert, photographic images are captured in a fraction of a second, altering the flow of time by capturing what the eye can no longer see once it has passed. For Liu, taking one of Lange’s pictures as a point of
MARIA PORGES
NOTES: 1. Lange’s images of internees and camps were so critical that most were impounded by the Army and remained unseen for more than fifty years. 2. Exhibited at Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, NY, September 8 October 13, 2016.
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WORKS ON CANVAS
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DREAMCATCHER 2017 Oil on canvas 70 x 80 in.
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WHITE ANGEL BREAD LINE 2017 Oil on canvas 80 x 80 in.
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MIGRANT MOTHER: MEALTIME 2016 Oil on canvas 60 x 60 in.
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LILY PAD 2017 Oil on canvas 48 x 48 in.
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WESTBOUND 2016 Oil on canvas 96 x 48 in.
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HOW CAN WE GO? 2015-2016 Oil on canvas 80 x 40 in.
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LABORER: FARM HAND 2016 Oil on canvas 36 x 36 in.
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AUGUST 2017 Oil on canvas 60 x 48 in.
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FETCHING WATER I 2017 Oil on canvas 80 x 80 in.
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FETCHING WATER II 2017 Oil on canvas 80 x 80 in.
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FETCHING WATER III 2017 Oil on canvas 80 x 96 in.
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WORKS ON PAPER
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COMPANIONS 2017 Watercolor on paper 14 1/8 x 20 in.
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THE FIELD 2017 Watercolor on paper 14 1/8 x 20 in.
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BLACK MADONNA 2016 Lithograph, edition of 40 Image: 27 3/4 x 21 3/4 in. Paper: 33 3/4 x 26 1/2 in.
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ROUTE 66 2016 Lithograph, edition of 60 Image: 18 x 25 3/4 in. Paper: 25 1/4 x 31 1/2 in.
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ROUTE 66 WITH CAT 2016 Lithograph, edition of 60 Image: 18 x 25 3/4 in. Paper: 25 1/4 x 31 1/2 in.
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HUNG LIU BORN 1948
Changchun, China
EDUCATION 1986
MFA in Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California
1981
Graduate Student (MFA equivalent) Mural Painting, Central Academy of
Fine Art, Beijing, China
1975
BFA in Education, Beijing Teachers College, Beijing, China
SELECTED SOLO MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS
2017
Hung Liu: American Exodus, University of Wyoming Art Museum,
University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming
Hung Liu: Scales of History, Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, California (Catalogue)
2016
Hung Liu: Daughter of China, Resident Alien, Katzen Center Museum,
American University, Washington, D.C. (Catalogue)
2014
The Rat Years, Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, West Virginia
2013
Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu, Retrospective, Oakland Museum
of California, Oakland, California. Exhibition traveled to Palm Springs Art
Museum, Palm Springs, California, through 2015 (Catalogue)
Hung Liu: Offerings, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, California 2012
Hung Liu: New Work, di Rosa Gatehouse Gallery, Napa, California
2008
Hung Liu: Now and Then, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of
Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma
2006
Full Circle: Revolutions in the Paintings of Hung Liu, Paul Robeson Gallery,
Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey 53
2005
The Vanishing: Re-presenting the Chinese in the American West, Salt Lake
Art Center, Salt Lake City, Utah. Exhibition traveled to Schneider Museum of
Art, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, Oregon; Prichard Art Gallery,
University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
2002
Strange Fruit: New Paintings by Hung Liu, Arizona State University Art
Museum, Tempe, Arizona. Exhibition traveled to Boise Art Museum, Boise,
Idaho; Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, California; Crocker Art Museum,
Sacramento, California, through 2003 (Catalogue)
2001
Beyond the Frame: Hung Liu, Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, Tennessee
2000
Where Is Mao? 2000, The Art Center, Center of Academic Resources,
Chulalongkom University, Bangkok, Thailand
1998
Hung Liu: WashingTown Blues, Halsey Gallery at the College of Charleston,
Charleston, South Carolina
1998
Hung Liu: A Ten-Year Survey, 1988-98, The College of Wooster Art Museum,
Wooster, Ohio. Exhibition traveled to The John and Margaret Muscarelle
Museum of Art, Williamsburg, Virginia; Kemper Museum of Contemporary
Art and Design, Kansas City, Missouri; University of California San Diego,La
Jolla, California; Bowdin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine; the
Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, through 1999 (Catalogue)
1997
Hung Liu: Unfolding Memory - Embodying History, Center for Curatorial
Studies, Bard College, Annandale, New York
1996
Parameters: Hung Liu, The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia
1995
Can-ton, the Baltimore Series, Baltimore Contemporary Museum, Baltimore,
Maryland
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1994
Jiu Jin Shan (Old Gold Mountain), an installation at the M. H. de Young
Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California
1990
Trauma, 1989, mixed media installation, Diverseworks, Houston, Texas
1989
Chinese Pieta, mixed-media installation, The Women’s Building, Los Angeles,
California Where is Mao?, an installation of an ironic memorial to Mao Tse Tung,
version II, Brown-Lupton Gallery, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth,
Texas 1988
Where is Mao?, an installation of an ironic memorial to Mao Tse Tung,
Southwestern College Art Gallery, Chula Vista, California
Resident Alien, an off-site installation of the Capp Street Project,
Monadnock Building, San Francisco, California
1986
Canto, installation, MFA exhibition, Annex Gallery, University of California
San Diego, La Jolla, California
1985
Grotto Variations, mural installation, Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery, University
of Nevada, Reno
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2016
International Women Artists Exhibition, Long Museum (West Bund), Xuhui
District, Shanghai, China
Bird in the Hand, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, California
Magnolia Editions: Innovation and Collaboration, curated by Randy Rosenberg,
Museum of Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, California
Marks Made: Prints by American Women Artists from the 1960s to the Present,
Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida
2015
First Look: Collecting Contemporary at the Asian, Asian Art Museum, San
Francisco, California (Re)discovering S(h)elves: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Christian
Petersen Art Museum, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 55
2015
Tahoe: A Visual History, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada
The Other Side: Mexican and Chinese Immigration to America, Asia Society,
Texas Center, Houston, Texas
2014
The Intuitionists, The Drawing Center, New York, New York
Radical Repetition: Albers to Warhol, From the Collections of Jordan D.
Schnitzer and his Family Foundation, Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA
Building Forward/Looking Back, de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University,
Santa Clara, California
The Other Side: Chinese and Mexican Immigration to America, USC Pacific
Asia Museum, Pasadena, California
2013
Under Pressure: Contemporary Prints from the Collections of Jordan D.
Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, Wichita Art Museum. Exhibition
traveled to Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska; Wichita Art Museum,
Wichita, Kansas; Utah Museum of Art, Salt Lake City, Utah; Missoula Art
Museum, Missoula, Montana; Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, Washington;
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Eugene, Oregon, through 2015
Experiments in the Fault Zone, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, California I, You, We, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York The Female Gaze: Women Artists Making Their World, Pennsylvania Academy
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of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
2012
Based In China, Ernst Barlach Museum, Wedel, Germany
Gold, Belvedere Museum, Vienna, Austria
2011
Off the Beaten Path: Violence, Women, and Art, an International Contemporary
Art Exhibition, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts; Newcomb Gallery,
Tulane University; Prospect.2, New Orleans, Louisiana
2011
Pressing Ideas: Fifty Years of Women’s Lithographs from Tamarind, National
Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
Hiding Places: Memory in the Arts, Kohler Center for the Arts, Sheboygan, Wisconsin Culture Revolution: Contemporary Chinese Paintings from the Allen Memorial
Art Museum, Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio All Over the Map, project organized by Annika Marie and Moira Roth, Poor
Farm, Manawa, Wisconsin 2010
What Makes a Picture a Portrait?, de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University,
Santa Clara, California
Better Half, Better Twelfth, Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska REAL(ist), Selby Gallery, Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota, Florida Out of Bounds: Art from the Collection of Driek and Michael Zirinsky, Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, Washington 2009
Transforming Traditions: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection,
Victoria H. Myhren Gallery, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado
2008
Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection,
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
2007
Contemporary Combustion: Chinese Artists in America, New Britain Museum
of Art, New Britain, Connecticut
Big Picture: Provisions for the Arts of Social Change, Nathan Cummings
Foundation, New York, New York
2005
Visual Politics: The Art of Engagement, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose,
California 57
2005
A Motion Picture, de Young Museum, San Francisco, California
Pressing Issues, Pressing Images, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 2002
Art/ Women/ California: Parallels and Intersections, 1950 - 2000, San Jose
Museum of Art, San Jose, California
2000
Critical Masses, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
Text & Subtext - Contemporary Art and Asian Women, Earl Lu Gallery, La
Salle-Sia College of the Arts, Singapore. Exhibition traveled to Ivan Dough-
erty Gallery, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Artspace,
Sydney, Australia; Ostasiatiska Museet (Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities),
Stockholm, Sweden; Stenersenmuseet (Stenersen Museum), Oslo, Norway;
Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark;
Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan; X-Ray Art Centre, Beijing, China,
through 2003 1999
New Work: Painting Today, Recent Acquisitions, San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art, San Francisco, California
1997
American Stories: Amidst Displacement and Transformation, Japan:
Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo; Chiba City Museum, Chiba; Fukui Fine Arts
Museum, Fukui; Kurashiki City Museum of Art, Kurashiki; Atorion, Akita,
through 1998 American Kaleidoscope: Art at the Close of this Century, National Museum
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of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
1995
Dis-Oriented; Shifting Identities of Asian Women in America, curated by
Margo Machida, Steinbaum Krauss Gallery and the Henry Street Settlement,
New York, New York
1994
The 43rd Corcoran Biennial of Contemporary American Painting, The
Corcoran Museum of Art, Washington, D.C.
1994
Twelve Bay Area Painters: The Eureka Fellowship Winners, San Jose Museum
of Art, San Jose, California
1993
In Transit, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, New York
1992
Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art (SECA) Award, with
John Beech and Maria Porges, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San
Francisco, California 1990
Precarious Links: Emily Jennings, Hung Liu, and Celia Munoz, curated by
Jim Edwards, San Antonio Museum of Art, Lawndale Art and Performance
Center, Houston, Texas Contemporary Art by Women of Color, Hemisfair Plaza, San Antonio, Texas 1980
National Fine Arts Colleges Exhibition, a traveling group show in China
SELECTED MUSEUM COLLECTIONS Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, Arizona Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, California Baruch College, William & Anita Newman Library, City University of New York, New York Boise Art Museum, Boise, Idaho Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, Indiana Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California Jordan D. Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, California Mills College, Oakland, California Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, California Muscarelle Museum of Art, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia 59
SELECTED MUSEUM COLLECTIONS (CONTINUED) National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. Logan Collection, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California Palm Springs Museum of Art, Palm Springs, California Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, Florida Rutgers Archives for Printmaking Studios at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, New Jersey San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California Santa Clara University, de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara, California Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nebraska Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco – H. M. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California The Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
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