Top 3 Contemporary Chinese Artists and Their Famous Works

Throughout history, art has been an essential aspect of civilization. Art has played a big role in representing the culture of its origin civilization, since it is a very expressive medium where one can truly show their emotions and circumstances. China has some of the most magnificent art pieces in our contemporary world, many of which have been created by Liu Xiaodong, Xu Bing, and Cai Guo-Qiang, arguably three of the most influential artists in our modern world.

1. Liu Xiaodong
Liu Xiaodong was born in Liaoning Province in 1963 and raised in a small industrial town in northeastern China. He received a BA of Fine Arts in oil painting and an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing in 1988 and 1995, respectively. During 1998 and 1999, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Complutense in Madrid, Spain. He currently resides in Beijing and is a professor at CAFA’s oil painting department. Whether he works in nature’s outside environment or takes inspiration from snapshots, Liu Xiaodong creates colorful and realistic paintings with thick paint. His works are primarily influenced by Lucian Freuid, a popular British painter. His paintings typically target the common people who are of the lower-income classes. So, Liu Xiaodong portrays these commoners as being inferior. He does this by painting them with ordinary clothes and situating them in backgrounds of smoggy skies, dilapidated buildings, or fields that are too big. One of his most famous works is Burning Garbage, which was produced in 1998. Burning Garbage is composed of two low-class people throwing trash into a fire at a landfill. It was intended to protest against throwing away trash on a regular basis and to increase environmental awareness. In essence, his paintings portrayed the reality of peoples’ living conditions and sought to incite social reform.

2. Xu Bing
Xu Bing was born in Chongqing in 1955. He acquired a BA degree from CAFA’s printmaking department and earned an MFA from CAFA in 1981 and 1987, respectively. In 1990, he migrated to the U.S. In 1999, he earned the MacArthur Fellowship because of his marvelous works in calligraphy and printmaking. He earned the 14th Fukuoka Asian culture award in honor of developing Asian culture and the first Artes Mundi prize in Wales in 2003 and 2004, respectively. In 2007, Xu Bing returned to China. From 2008 to 2014, Xu Bing was the Vice President of CAFA. Currently, he resides in Beijing and is a professor and director of the Academic Committee of CAFA. He is also said to have been currently working in New York as well. One of his most recognizable works is Book From the Sky, which was written during the years 1987-1991. Book From the Sky is a text which incorporates 4,000 Chinese characters that are in line with the rules of pictographic composition but are not officially a part of the simplified Chinese language. He also created a bridge language by reorganizing English words in an attempt to make them look similar to their corresponding Chinese pictographs. Xu Bing also wrote Book From the Ground: From Point to Point in 2012. This book was only written with emojis and visual representations. A final great work produced by Xu Bing is his Tobacco Project, which he started working on in 1999. In this work, 500,000 cigarettes are used to form stripes of tiger skin which are organized through orange filters or exposed white papers. Since people in China commonly smoke when talking amongst each other, this work metaphorically represents a bond with regard to language.

3. Cai Guo-Qiang
Cai Guo-Qiang was born in Quanzhou in 1957. From 1981 to 1985, he was educated in stage design at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. In his hometown of Quanzhou, he developed a fascination for gunpowder. So, when residing in Japan from 1986 to 1995, Guo-Qiang built upon his fascination and made more discoveries about gunpowder as an amateur. Thus, he was inspired to create outdoor events that involved some type of explosion, such as Sky Ladder. Sky Ladder, which was released in 2015, is Cai Guo-Qiang’s most famous work. Sky Ladder was composed of a 1,650 ft. trail of fireworks that clung to a helium balloon. However, the Chinese government had not permitted Cuo Qiang to carry out this project, and so he was forced to flee to New York. Despite this, Sky Ladder was such a popular work that there was a Netflix documentary entitled “Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang,” which aired in 2016. Additionally, Cai Guo-Qiang organized Peasant Da Vincis, a display that showcased inventions of the common people within China. Consequently, this work consisted of both odd and marvelous illustrations, ranging from flying saucers to robots. Currently, Cai Guo-Qiang resides and works in New York.

In essence, Liu Xiaodong, Xu Bing, and Cai Guo-Qiang have created some of the most influential artwork in our modern world. Some of these influential works include Liu Xiaodong’s Burning Garbage, Xu Bing’s Tobacco Project, and Cai Guo-Qiang’s Peasant Da Vincis. Each of these works symbolizes a certain facet of Chinese culture and provides a clear message, ranging from metaphorical language bonds to the reality of the common peoples’ substandard living conditions.

Sources:
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-the-top-10-chinese-artists-not-named-ai-weiwei
http://www.artnet.com/artists/liu-xiaodong/biography
http://www.artnet.com/artists/liu-xiaodong/burning-garbage-O-Mtp0mPfOwHMvIY9eluxA2
http://www.xubing.com/en/about
https://caiguoqiang.com/about-the-artist/
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1840280,00.html