Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting

David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of recent paintings by Chinese artist Liu Ye, on view at the gallery’s London location. This is the artist’s second solo presentation with the gallery and the first time his work has been shown in London since 2002.

In his deeply meditative paintings, Liu investigates the intersections of history and representation through a distinct vocabulary that transcends time and place, evoking conceptual and emotional registers of meaning. Carefully balanced and lushly rendered, his works encompass a diverse range of aesthetic and cultural sources. Drawing on both his childhood memories and his early education in Europe, Liu captures the likenesses and legacies of authors such as Vladimir Nabokov, Hans Christian Andersen, and William Shakespeare; twentieth-century Chinese cultural icons, including actress Ruan Lingyu and writer Eileen Chang; and modernist painters, architects, and designers, from the Bauhaus to Balthus. These various points of reference have inspired Liu’s paintings for more than thirty years, resulting in a body of work that is at once rich in its historical quotations and singularly his own.

Image: Installation view, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, David Zwirner, London, 2023

Location

24 Grafton Street London

Dates

October 10—November 18, 2023

Private View

Tuesday, October 10, 6–8 PM

Gallery Hours

Tues—Sat 10am–6pm

Artist

Naive and Sentimental Painting

Portrait of Liu Ye, 2023. Photo by Xiao Li

Portrait of Liu Ye, 2023. Photo by Xiao Li

“The exploration of human emotions has always been the subject of my interest. I have painted people or things that I love.”

—Liu Ye

Liu Ye

Who is Afraid of Madame G?, 2019-2023

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 16 3/4 x 12 3/4 inches (42.5 x 32.5 cm)

Private Collection, Beijing, China

This exhibition—the title of which playfully references composer John Adams’s 1999 symphony Naive and Sentimental Music, itself an allusion to Friedrich Schiller’s 1795–1796 essay “On Naive and Sentimental Poetry”—examines the art-historical legacy of portraiture and the formal possibilities and nuances of the painted surface.

Liu Ye, Who is Afraid of Madame G, 2019–2023 (detail)

Liu Ye, Who is Afraid of Madame G, 2019–2023 (detail)

Jan van Eyck, Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?), 1433 (detail). Collection of the National Gallery, London

Jan van Eyck, Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?), 1433 (detail). Collection of the National Gallery, London

Antonello da Messina, Portrait of a Young Man, c. 1470 (detail). Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Antonello da Messina, Portrait of a Young Man, c. 1470 (detail). Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Showing precise brushwork that rivals the paint handling of European old masters such as Jan van Eyck and Antonello da Messina, the intimate, starkly lit works on view mark a new turn in Liu’s style toward a mode of naturalistic portraiture that is meticulous yet multivalent.

Liu Ye

Su Li-zhen, 2021

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 25 1/4 x 19 1/4 inches (64 x 49 cm)

“For all the diversity of his motifs and protagonists, Liu Ye’s major theme is the personal—considered in both its highs and lows.… His pictures take us back to the origins of being and becoming human, provoking and moving us at the same time.”

—Udo Kittelmann, curator of Liu Ye: Storytelling, Fondazione Prada, 2020–2021

Liu Ye

Su Li-zhen, 2021

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 17 x 13 7/8 inches (43.2 x 35.2 cm)

“The inspiration behind the portrait of Su Li-zhen comes from the character of the same name in Wong Kar-wai’s films In the Mood for Love and Days of Being Wild. The character of Su Li-zhen is portrayed by Maggie Cheung in both of these films. Therefore, this series of portraits serves as both a depiction of Maggie Cheung and the character Su Li-zhen.”

—Liu Ye

Wong Kar-wai, In the Mood for Love, 2000 (still)

Wong Kar-wai, In the Mood for Love, 2000 (still)

Liu Ye

Su li-zhen, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 12 3/4 x 10 3/8 inches (32.3 x 26.3 cm)

Wong Kar-wai, Days of Being Wild, 1990 (still)

Wong Kar-wai, Days of Being Wild, 1990 (still)

“I am deeply fascinated by the relevance of my subjects; they hold contextual connections that often do not unfold in an obvious linear manner, but more like lively leaps and, at times, even deceptive twists.”

—Liu Ye

Liu Ye

Su Li-zhen, 2021

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 12 3/4 x 10 3/8 inches (32.3 x 26.3 cm)

The paintings on view run the gamut of Liu’s varied interests, from literary and artistic inspirations to his family and pets. In two works, Liu portrays Jorge Luis Borges—himself a master of overlapping and layered scenarios and references—from the shoulders up. In one, Liu offsets the Argentine writer’s wrinkled visage and piercing gaze against an azure blue background, bordered by strips of black.

Liu Ye

Jorge Luis Borges, 2022-2023

Acrylic on canvas mounted on wood panel

Framed: 16 3/8 x 11 5/8 inches (41.5 x 29.5 cm)

“While Liu has been actively reducing the presence of narration in his works, and unlike many of his contemporaries in China, intentionally staying away from the socio-political terrain, he is a storyteller. He exists in a world where art and literature collides with pop culture, where books offer a purer and greater picture.”

—Yung Ma, senior curator, Hayward Gallery

Liu Ye, Jorge Luis Borges, 2022–2023 (detail)

Liu Ye, Jorge Luis Borges, 2022–2023 (detail)

The work’s rectilinear visual construction harkens back to modernist painter Barnett Newman’s four-part cycle Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue (1966–1970) and the modernist geometries of Piet Mondrian.

Barnett Newman, Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue IV, 1969–1970. Collection of Neue Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Barnett Newman, Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue IV, 1969–1970. Collection of Neue Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Piet Mondrian, Composition No. III, 1929. Private collection

Piet Mondrian, Composition No. III, 1929. Private collection

“If we suppose that in past pieces [Liu] paid tribute to the ‘spirit of abstraction’ by imitating Mondrian’s works, by now the abstract has been internalized: it imbues the images that flow from his brush ... with a solidity and distinctness of structure, a melodic contour, which means he has gone past the stage of setting up fairy tale scenarios as a way of dissolving an oppressive reality.”

—Zhu Zhu, poet, curator, and critic

Liu Ye, Mondrian at Noon, 2000. Collection of the Long Museum, West Bund, Shanghai

Liu Ye, Mondrian at Noon, 2000. Collection of the Long Museum, West Bund, Shanghai

Mondrian’s work has long been a point of interest for Liu, often appearing as a picture within a picture in earlier paintings such as Mondrian at Noon (2000).

Liu Ye

Jorge Luis Borges, 2022-2023

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 21 1/4 x 13 3/8 inches (54 x 34 cm)

“Translation itself is a creative act. In the process of crafting this series of portraits, I envisioned myself as both a creator and a translator.”

—Liu Ye

Liu Ye

El Aleph, 2023

Acrylic on canvas mounted on fiberboard

Framed: 16 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches (41.8 x 31.9 cm)

The painting above shares its title with Borges’s 1945 short story “El Aleph.” In the story, a fictionalized version of the author gazes into a tiny, mysterious sphere that contains within it the entirety of the universe seen at once from every possible angle.

“I saw the Aleph from every point and angle, and in the Aleph I saw the earth and in the earth the Aleph and in the Aleph the earth,” Borges writes. “I saw my own face and my own bowels; I saw your face; and I felt dizzy and wept, for my eyes had seen that secret and conjectured object whose name is common to all men but which no man has looked upon—the unimaginable universe. I felt infinite wonder, infinite pity.”

Liu Ye

Vladimir Nabokov, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 17 x 13 7/8 inches (43.3 x 35.2 cm)

“When painting portraits of Borges or Nabokov, I wanted to get as close as possible to how they looked in those historical photographs. Simultaneously, I acknowledged the vast temporal and spatial distance that separates me from them, leading me to realize that what I truly require is the ability to conjure them in my imagination.”

—Liu Ye

Vladimir Nabokov, 1958. Courtesy Carl Mydans Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Vladimir Nabokov, 1958. Courtesy Carl Mydans Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jorge Luis Borges in Buenos Aires, 1973. Courtesy Levan Ramishvili

Jorge Luis Borges in Buenos Aires, 1973. Courtesy Levan Ramishvili

Liu’s paintings of portraits simultaneously invoke and destabilize their own formal and conceptual traditions. Fastidiously rendered over months, sometimes years, these works evince the artist’s unique ability to atomize stroke and surface into an unexpected kind of abstraction, even when depicting subjects in a highly naturalistic figurative manner.

Installation view, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, David Zwirner, London, 2023

Installation view, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, David Zwirner, London, 2023

Liu Ye

Phoebe, 2021

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 12 5/8 x 8 3/4 inches (32.2 x 22.3 cm)

A trio of paintings on view depicts Liu’s Akita, Phoebe, and his cat, Nao Nao. In two of these works, the sitter is presented in regal profile, imbuing a normally quotidian subject with a solemn gravitas reminiscent of ancient Egyptian reliefs and eighteenth-century British equestrian portraits.

Liu Ye

Phoebe, 2023

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 33 1/8 x 41 inches (84 x 104 cm)

Liu Ye

Nao Nao, 2023

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 20 3/4 x 28 1/2 inches (52.7 x 72.5 cm)

Liu Ye, Nao Nao, 2023 (detail)

Liu Ye, Nao Nao, 2023 (detail)

Nao Nao and Phoebe, Liu Ye’s pets. Photo by the artist

Nao Nao and Phoebe, Liu Ye’s pets. Photo by the artist

Liu Ye, Phoebe, 2023 (detail)

Liu Ye, Phoebe, 2023 (detail)

“Although his subject matter ranges from subtle ironies to rhythmical landscapes, the luminous geometry that informs these paintings remains consistently evident, awakening new thematic variations between imagination and perception that signal a new type of order and unity in painting today.”

—Robert C. Morgan, adjunct professor of fine arts, Pratt Institute

Liu Ye

Phoebe's Balls, Nao Nao's Balls, 2023

Acrylic on wood panel

Framed: 8 1/4 x 12 5/8 inches (21 x 32.2 cm)

The present painting depicts an array of colorful toys belonging to Liu’s pets. Rendered and arranged in overlapping rows that recall the still-life paintings of Giorgio Morandi, the balls are presented as semi-abstract forms in space, eliding any additional context.

Giorgio Morandi, Still Life, 1960. Collection of the Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Italy. Giovanardi Collection. © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome

Giorgio Morandi, Still Life, 1960. Collection of the Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Italy. Giovanardi Collection. © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome

In two works, Liu depicts an orchid stylistically modeled after Karl Blossfeldt’s (1865–1932) photographs of flowers and plant life—a recurring source of imagery for Liu, previously explored in his series of Book Paintings.

Liu Ye

Flower No. 5 (Homage to Karl Blossfeldt), 2022-2023

Acrylic on canvas mounted on wood panel

Framed: 16 1/4 x 20 3/8 inches (41.3 x 51.9 cm)

“Liu Ye sets the game's rules for himself—to work as a scanner, to work diligently and carefully to reproduce photographic images with great care and attention. The ambiguous and dangerous relationship between the original and the copy unfolds in the tip of the brush.”

—Chang Xuyang, curator

Karl Blossfeldt, Passiflora (Passionflower), 1898–1932 (detail). Collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2015 Karl Blossfeldt/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Karl Blossfeldt, Passiflora (Passionflower), 1898–1932 (detail). Collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2015 Karl Blossfeldt/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Liu Ye, Book Painting No. 20 (Blossfeldt, Urformen der Kunst, Verlag Ernst Wasmuth GmBH, Berlin, 1936), 2017 (detail)

Liu Ye, Book Painting No. 20 (Blossfeldt, Urformen der Kunst, Verlag Ernst Wasmuth GmBH, Berlin, 1936), 2017 (detail)

While Liu’s earlier works re-created entire photographic spreads from Blossfeldt’s 1928 volume Urformen der Kunst (published in English as Art Forms in Nature), here he paints a flower directly from life, enacting a conceptual investigation of portraiture and objecthood.

Liu Ye

Flower No.4 (Homage to Karl Blossfeldt), 2022

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 10 3/8 x 13 3/4 inches (26.5 x 35 cm)

Finally, two works in the exhibition depict Miffy the rabbit, a children’s cartoon character invented by the Dutch author Dick Bruna. In one she appears adorned as an illustration on a spoon in a still life with geometric spatial modeling that again recalls Morandi. In the other, she gazes pensively at the viewer, her flop-eared head tilted to one side.

Liu Ye

Miffy, 2021

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 12 5/8 x 9 1/4 inches (32.1 x 23.4 cm)

“Nabokov’s admiration for [Lewis] Carroll (the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) inspired me to portray Miffy the rabbit, reminiscent of the childhood game of 'hide and seek.’”

—Liu Ye

Liu Ye, Self Portrait, 2013. Private collection

Liu Ye, Self Portrait, 2013. Private collection

Sometimes serving as a self-portrait or stand-in for the artist, Miffy is one of Liu’s most enduring subjects; her repeated appearance throughout his oeuvre is itself a testament to Liu’s inquisitive and nuanced approach to portraiture.

Liu Ye

A Cup of Coffee, 2023

Acrylic on canvas mounted on wooden panel

Framed: 8 5/8 x 12 5/8 inches (22 x 32 cm)

“Liu Ye defies expectations that Chinese art must always make reference to history or politics by resolutely concentrating on the personal, imbuing his paintings with intense psychological states, an approach that is unique in Chinese contemporary art.… In this way, he has succeeded as an individual artist and for this reason, which after all is the only reason to look at art, he commands our attention.”

—Barbara Pollack, critic

Inquire About Works by Liu Ye

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

An installation view of the exhibition, Liu Ye: Naive and Sentimental Painting, at David Zwirner in London, dated 2023.

Liu Ye

Vladimir Nabokov, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 17 x 13 7/8 inches (43.3 x 35.2 cm)

Liu Ye

Jorge Luis Borges, 2022-2023

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 21 1/4 x 13 3/8 inches (54 x 34 cm)

Liu Ye

Jorge Luis Borges, 2022-2023

Acrylic on canvas mounted on wood panel

Framed: 16 3/8 x 11 5/8 inches (41.5 x 29.5 cm)

Liu Ye

El Aleph, 2023

Acrylic on canvas mounted on fiberboard

Framed: 16 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches (41.8 x 31.9 cm)

Liu Ye

Flower No. 5 (Homage to Karl Blossfeldt), 2022-2023

Acrylic on canvas mounted on wood panel

Framed: 16 1/4 x 20 3/8 inches (41.3 x 51.9 cm)

Liu Ye

Su li-zhen, 2022

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 12 3/4 x 10 3/8 inches (32.3 x 26.3 cm)

Liu Ye

Su Li-zhen, 2021

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 25 1/4 x 19 1/4 inches (64 x 49 cm)

Liu Ye

Su Li-zhen, 2021

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 12 3/4 x 10 3/8 inches (32.3 x 26.3 cm)

Liu Ye

Phoebe, 2021

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 12 5/8 x 8 3/4 inches (32.2 x 22.3 cm)

Liu Ye

Flower No.4 (Homage to Karl Blossfeldt), 2022

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 10 3/8 x 13 3/4 inches (26.5 x 35 cm)

Liu Ye

Phoebe, 2023

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 33 1/8 x 41 inches (84 x 104 cm)

Liu Ye

Nao Nao, 2023

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 20 3/4 x 28 1/2 inches (52.7 x 72.5 cm)

Liu Ye

Phoebe's Balls, Nao Nao's Balls, 2023

Acrylic on wood panel

Framed: 8 1/4 x 12 5/8 inches (21 x 32.2 cm)

Liu Ye

Miffy, 2021

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 12 5/8 x 9 1/4 inches (32.1 x 23.4 cm)

Liu Ye

Who is Afraid of Madame G?, 2019-2023

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 16 3/4 x 12 3/4 inches (42.5 x 32.5 cm)

Private Collection, Beijing, China

Liu Ye

Su Li-zhen, 2021

Acrylic on canvas

Framed: 17 x 13 7/8 inches (43.2 x 35.2 cm)

Liu Ye

A Cup of Coffee, 2023

Acrylic on canvas mounted on wooden panel

Framed: 8 5/8 x 12 5/8 inches (22 x 32 cm)

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