Curator Charles Merewether states, “[Li Xinping creates] elaborate scenes in which love and war seem inextricably tied to one another; a heightening of the senses, their destruction, their intoxication and celebration: figures and matter merge and separate and merge again – to make love, to make war – the union of bodies.”
Following the presentation of In a Time of Love and War: Li Xinping in Shanghai, the exhibition will travel to Osage Hong Kong. In a Time of Love and War: Li Xinping traces the development of the artist’s career through the thread of sensuality and the notion of a warring and dialogue of forces. The exhibition showcases the dynamic, multilateral directions in Li’s art practice of more than a decade, featuring work from 2002 to 2014. Works such as The Butterfly Lovers refer to Chinese folktale, yet is depicted in a structure and approach reminiscent of Klimt, showing an engagement with fabric and cloth, brought to the surface of the work itself. Elfland No. 8 on the other hand, captures an interplay of figures, which leads to a distinctive period in Li’s work, where interlocking abstract forms such as in Infinity become key, departing from the subject matter of bodies and sensuality to one of the union and dialogue of aesthetic and mathematical logics.
In A Time of Love And War: Li Xinping also probes both the Asian and European influences on the artist’s work that place Li in a unique position in contemporary Asian art.
To accompany the exhibition, a roundtable discussion on Li Xinping’s art practice will be held on the 7th of December, from 2:30 – 3:30 pm. Speakers include Hong Kong artist Au Hoi Lam and professor Frank Vigneron of Chinese University of Hong Kong, as well as curator Charles Merewether and Li Xinping. The discussion aims to expand the context in which the works of Li Xinping can be understood.
