Solo Exhibition Chun Art Museum, Shanghai
Liu Weijian: Within Life
Duration：2025.12.28-2026.1.25
Opening：2025.12.28 15:00
Artist：Liu Weijian
Curator：Zhao Chun
Time：10:00-17:30
（Closed on Mondays, public holidays, and for special occasions.）
Venue：Chun Art Museum（No.655 Fuzhou Road, Shanghai）
What Can Be Seen in Liu Weijian’s Paintings
By Wei Jingjing
I. The “Emptiness” and “Concealment” of Landscape
The exhibition proposes five thematic titles, which I have organized and sequenced as follows:
① Rooms with Memory
② Distant Light
③ Scenery Without an Audience
④ When the Streetlights Come On
⑤ Meditation on Paper
Categorized broadly by spatial attributes into private‑individual, public‑collective, and natural‑social realms—where the former refers to external subjects and the latter to inherent qualities—these titles trace the painter’s evolution from his early to recent periods. With the passage of time, Liu Weijian’s gaze gradually “steps out” of the room, traverses the streets, and withdraws into nature, with crisscrossing paths, as experimentation accompanies every stage. The viewer's focus likewise follows the painter from the constrained interior to the boundless expanse of sky and earth. Regardless of whether visual experience keeps pace, the expansiveness of horizontally developed knowledge within the entire creative system is unmistakably evident. The Shenzhen exhibition anchors its conceptual depth in the artist's early style — namely, the articulation of "objects." These objects serve both as witnesses to the individual and as clues to the collective. From the very outset of his career, Liu Weijian demonstrated a keen sensitivity to this concrete yet socially metaphysical awareness, a capacity likely nurtured by his own practice as a poet. This is evident even in the titling of his works. Indeed, poetic sensibility has long been a powerful tool in creation, yet on his new painterly journey, the language of painting itself now transcends the power of words. Perhaps this fine tradition of poetry may momentarily depart from its original homeland, for today's audience embraces a vaster, more boundless space for association. Hence, the dialectical technique of "emptiness" and "concealment" takes on vital significance: the less the painting offers, the more treasure the viewer unearths. The sofa was an early obsession for Weijian—countless human events unfolded upon it. While the sofa itself stands solitary, the stories it holds continue ceaselessly, without end. With remarkable ingenuity, he shifted the perspective technique, transitioning from contemporary acrylic on canvas to the traditional Chinese handscroll format—exchanging Western single-point perspective for Chinese scattered-point composition. This approach extends the infinite possibilities of individual narratives, thereby constructing what may be termed a "social chronicle." The sum of each individual's infinitude constitutes the collective identity. When the brush shifts from private spaces to public scenes, this characteristic becomes even more pronounced—yet the difficulty of representation increases accordingly. Moving from singular industrial objects—sofas, chairs, beds, vessels of human presence—to public utilities, each person experiences and uses them, yet holds no claim of ownership. The narrative transitions from personal storytelling to the stage of public space, where the emotional tone grows more solemn and ritualized. What remains unchanged is that these spaces are still devoid of people. In the streets depicted in his 2020 works, pandemic prevention personnel and masked family members appear. The novel coronavirus pervaded every corner of the city, and an atmosphere of tension lingered everywhere. In his calligraphy diary, the painter wrote about rushing to buy groceries, staying at home, and undergoing nucleic acid tests during the pandemic. By 2022, his focus shifted to documenting the Russia-Ukraine war, U.S. elections, and events in Europe, all while allowing these subjects to vanish at the horizon in his signature painting style. As he noted, "Such online politics will ultimately lose to social reality" (excerpt from Liu Weijian's calligraphy notes, May 16, 2022).
The "empty shot," as a mode of framing, possesses rich inclusiveness and offers the eye a moment of rest. Landscape painting, as an image of nature, is not nature itself—it is cultural, historical, and political. Whether depicting man-made or natural scenery, it operates within the realm of cultural essence. "The Stage with Light" includes relatively few purely landscape works, yet in my view, these pieces possess a more profound epistemological leap. They break free from interiors and outdoor streets, escape the relentless human tides of Shanghai, and surrender the memory of time entirely to the landscape—an aimless void. This unique temperament is particularly evident in the 2021–2022 landscape paintings. The “Pomelo” series, for instance, adopts both the compositional approach of traditional Chinese "broken branch" flower painting and experiments with a new perspective—the upward gaze. Reflecting on past perspectival characteristics, three modes emerge: the scrolling "horse-riding" perspective, the bird's-eye view, and another—an extreme close-up, such as hanging raw meat, so near that its form dissolves. The sofa rendered in long-scroll format exemplifies the scrolling perspective, emphasizing repetition and monotony, much like the industrial society of the modern age of replication. The era is characterized by hyper-individual collectives formed by people stripped of individuality, reflected in the painter's brush as lifeless, puppet-like faces. This calls to mind the ancient literary heritage of Liu Weijian’s ancestral home, the “Chu Ci” (Songs of Chu), and the film “The Banquet”, in which the protagonist dons a white mask to dance, embodying the dual loss of bloodline and love. With faces and expressions effaced, sorrow or fleeting hope cries out from the depths of the body's soul—an extreme rational restraint that allows the landscape to shout its loudest, letting the weight of emotion overflow beyond the canvas. The ordinary color blocks formed by Weijian's lines share a similar inner temperament with his paper‑based transcriptions of Yan Zhenqing's Tang‑dynasty “Record of the Immortal Magu’s Altar”—both strive to maximize emotional expression within the consciousness of deliberate method (*youwei fa*). This is the literati nature ingrained in Liu Weijian's very bones. The consistently balanced brushwork does not pursue the dazzling, kaleidoscopic side of Shanghai but instead uncovers the city's secrets through daily, meticulous observation. However, the use of the scrolling “horse-riding” perspective is not extensive; perhaps the painter lost interest in representing repetition and turned instead to an unobstructed overhead view—possessing the “deep distance” (shenyuan) scenery described by Guo Xi. Ripples spreading across water, simple lake surfaces, intersecting railway tracks, solar halos—they share a homogeneous composition: repeating circles and parallel lines. The lines appear cool and detached; the deconstructed "mask" imagery forms one of the city's many faces. As the viewer gazes upon it, they are also gazed upon by the omnipresent urban countenance. At this moment, landscape shifts from literary devices such as allegory, symbol, and metaphor toward the counter‑force of cultural practice. What was once effortlessly and confidently used to convey "what it is" through landscape imagery has abruptly transformed into "what it does." Landscape has begun to produce relationships of power and knowledge, functioning as an independent cultural apparatus of production that catches people unprepared. As the American anthropologist Wendy J. Darby states, "The representation of landscape is not apolitical but deeply embedded in relations of power and knowledge." This is the deeper logic behind Liu Weijian’s persistent depiction of urban streets and natural landscapes. Industrial society and the information revolution have already transformed how people perceive nature—yet the painter seeks neural contact points precisely where the ripple of energy is faintest, akin to a traditional Chinese physician reading the pulse. The sense of urgency not only shortens the distance to objects, creating tension, but also renders the upward gaze distinctly anti‑traditional. As mentioned earlier, the “Pomelo” series allows the viewer to experience this upward gaze at eye level, dissolving the conventional vanishing-horizon motif and prompting a re-examination of how modes of seeing affect the relationship between power and image. Do you still recall a certain experience: the freedom of looking?
The renowned French master photographer Eugène Atget used his lens to capture the city's portraits. We find that the emptier the streets, the more they are incorporated into the expressive system of history, as if those rich emotions can only pour out their hearts within art history. After him, no photographer has acted with such nonchalance. Freely traversing every familiar street in Paris, waiting until dawn approaches or dusk falls—when the streetscape belongs only to itself—Atget presses the long‑awaited shutter. Walter Benjamin described this as "bearing the imprint of the historical process." Using the photographer's lens as a metaphor for the canvas's frame, Liu Weijian captures the unique character of Shanghai, a trading port shattered by opium in modern times. Eileen Chang said, "Shanghainese people are traditional Chinese people tempered by the pressures of modern life, a blend of various abnormal products of old and new cultures. The result may not be entirely healthy, but there is a strange kind of wisdom here." Along with the unique composite colors in the paintings, they showcase both the prosperity and loneliness brought about by the city's rapid development. The use of color subtly reveals the genetic code of the Shanghai School of painting during the Republic of China era. The combination of commerce and intellectualism fulfills the painter's illusion of a free style, recreating the legendary scene of the Yangzhou Eight Eccentrics making a living by selling paintings during the mid-Qing Dynasty. When viewing works depicting urban landscapes, although one already knows the "boring" answer, there is still a sense of "expectation" when anticipating new works or looking at the next piece. This is a fascination with the power of interpreting "writable texts." In deserted streets or sparsely populated areas, viewers freely associate and express their feelings. Every streetlamp, moving vehicle, and stationary sign leads to accidental fragments of memory. In the dazzling lights of nighttime Shanghai, the streetlights steal the city's secrets. The dazzling lights, however difficult to bear, never dim at night.
II. The Literary Sensibility Arising from Contemporary Images
From a few outdoor stones, I attempt to uncover the code of contemporary imagery. In August 2018, at the "Reshaping Experience" exhibition at the Half-Picture Art Museum in Shanghai, I first wrote about Liu Weijian's acrylic paintings on canvas. I chose his 2010 sculpture "In the Wilderness 2" as a reference. Compared to complex and diverse buildings, the isolated stone sculpture possesses a stronger sense of "protagonist," as if nothing can escape its sharp eyes. Regardless of whether the painter is accustomed to such straightforward "interpretation," one cannot avoid the fate of being "deceived" by the fictional images in the painting upon first viewing it. This is a successful work depicting the figurative style of the stone sculpture, and even the delicate brushstrokes on the white "wings" evoke the perfect physique of an ancient Greek youth. In 2010, the language of this style of creation was not lost, but rather dissolved. Everything that characterized early realist depictions, including their "patience," dissolved into an ordinary stone, either natural or artificial, found in nature more than a decade later. Similar to a large artificial rock formation in a garden, the stone itself becomes the main subject, and certain images flash across its texture—images of all the people who served this massive object: quarry workers, transporters, truck drivers, salespeople, park managers, public institutions, financial personnel, sculptors, designers, and many other small groups of people. They traveled through traffic and villages, through cities and at night, even using modern online payment systems. The painter's goal was not to depict ordinary objects with great "likeness," but rather to convey the "spirit" of the artificial stone through combinations of lines and color blocks of varying lengths. As Gu Kaizhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty stated, the brilliance of figure painting lies in "capturing the spirit and essence, all contained within the details." It's natural for human figures to be imbued with life and expression in art, but doesn't a broken rock in the countryside possess its own inherent spirit? The seemingly empty landscapes and city streets, their essence is integrated into every brushstroke, the abstract, expressive brushwork reflecting Liu Weijian's intellectual exploration of the philosophy of emptiness. In his 2021 work, "Parallel to Life," the title itself reveals the political implications of the landscape imagery. Three piles of broken stones, seemingly cast from concrete, are clearly not natural rocks. The fractured, irregular stones form a "dialogue" with the nearby well, but these useless fragments will likely soon be cleared away by park maintenance; their compositional arrangement is merely "transient." In the endless landscape, human existence appears small and powerless, and the power of the collective is equally so. Jia Zhangke's films often employ this technique of contrasting nature and humanity, and often the people within these natural settings have no actual interpersonal relationships. What connects them are the city streets and suburban railway tracks depicted by the painter, the park's greenery and roadside bushes, even the tall buildings and public transportation. Liu Weijian sees the essence of the web of life, weaving a silent world within his paintings. It's even possible that we've walked under the same pomelo tree; this critical presentation of nature and the "broken branch flower" motif in Chinese painting conceal different humanistic aspirations. From the Yangzhou School of painters in the Qing Dynasty, who made a living by selling their paintings, to the Shanghai School of painters in modern times, who faced commercial competition, not a single artist failed to consider the general public, even possessing a thorough understanding of popular tastes. In the face of reality, in other words, "the elitist politics of the court painting style would eventually be leveled by the popular tastes of ordinary people." The popular appeal that Liu Weijian sought was one that could be universally understood while still upholding the serious rhetoric of the literati.
In the early 19th century, Johann Peter Hebel, a renowned German writer of anecdotes, included an interesting story in his collection "Rhenish Family Pleasures". The story begins with a miner from the town of Fellen who dies in a mining accident on the eve of his wedding. The bride remains faithful to him after his death, and decades later, having withered into a frail old woman, she learns that a young body has been discovered in the mine. Due to the preservation effects of iron sulfate, the body is still perfectly intact. The old woman recognizes it as her fiancé, and shortly afterward, she passes away. From the story's structure, it's clear that the widow's life was incredibly monotonous, spent waiting for half a lifetime until she finally identified her husband's body. Faced with his young yet deceased face, she finally ceased her struggle against death. A widow's lonely life offers little to discuss, like an empty scene in a film, yet Hebel wrote the story with remarkable brilliance, evoking a multitude of thoughts. "During this time, Lisbon was destroyed by an earthquake, the Seven Years' War raged and then subsided, Francis I died, the Jesuit order was abolished, Poland was partitioned, Queen Maria Theresa passed away, and Struensee was executed. America gained independence, the French and Spanish alliance failed in its attempt to capture the Strait of Gibraltar, the Turks imprisoned Marshal von Stein in the Vetrana cave in Hungary, and Emperor Joseph also died." "Gustav of Sweden conquered Finland, which belonged to Russia; the French Revolution broke out, initiating a series of wars; and Leopold II also passed away. Napoleon seized Russia, the British attacked Copenhagen, farmers sowed and harvested, millers ground grain, blacksmiths hammered on anvils, and miners dug for minerals in underground tunnels." Heber's seemingly simple description of a widow's life presents a stark contrast between the mundane and the momentous. While the world's political landscape underwent dramatic changes, marked by brutal and protracted wars, the widow's life remained unchanged, a quiet existence amidst the turmoil. The earth's subtle changes and the constant upheaval of society coexisted in the same time and space, with the widow's only concern being the return of her fiancé's body. Painter Liu Weijian explores the differences between large-scale societal changes and subtle natural transformations, a subtlety so fine that it's almost imperceptible, like the fleeting moments on a night street, the changing colors of a pomelo tree through the seasons, the ever-changing sky, and the solitary water pipe in the snowy wilderness. His restrained and elegant use of color blocks replaces the subtle Chinese lines of Chang Yu, but a similarity lies in the fact that both painters share a love for calligraphy.
Rather than saying the landscape carries symbolic meaning, it's more accurate to say that the images of the landscape serve as evidence revealing memories. Their cultural representation inspires readers to trace historical clues, and all signs in the landscape are "human." Wei Jian's narrative of the night is an extreme expression of observing human migration. Sometimes he also depicts midday, evening, and dawn, but the group activities at those times lack the authenticity of the silence of the night. The mystery of time and space remains undisturbed. This narrative discourse is quite different from the "night mountains" depicted by Huang Binhong. The former's deserted alleys actually conceal the city's daytime revelry, a stark contrast that only emerges in first-tier cities; when things reach an extreme, they move in the opposite direction. Liu Weijian, however, moves from an abundance of trivial details to focusing on the reflections of only one or two things. The face of reality becomes as expressionless as a snowman in winter, humanity becomes increasingly abstract, and the "evidence" needed for the paintings decreases, yet the memory traces left behind become more numerous and tend towards chaotic uncertainty. If Huang Binhong's "Night Mountains" symbolize the hermit's dream of traditional literati, then Liu Weijian's "Night" actively engages with the world, albeit by capturing the moments when people are absent. Occasionally, human figures serve as spatial backdrops to this eternal landscape, and the frequently appearing horizon draws everything and the viewer into a void. Amidst the daily realities of pandemics, war, and death, the painter refuses to succumb to the circumstances of the present world. Even facing food shortages and limited space, his identity as an artist allows him to maintain the clarity of an outsider, steadfastly acting as a chronicler of contemporary historical developments.
More Pictures:
Facebook
Instagram
WeChat 微信