Co-sponsored by the Beijing Fine Art Academy and the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the solo exhibition of Liu Qinghe entitled “Vernacular” which is curated by renowned critic Wu Hongliang, is about to be exhibited at the Beijing Fine Art Academy on October 17, 2014(the opening ceremony scheduled for 2:30 pm on October 18).

Compared with previous exhibitions there is great attention paid to the grand scenery and a contemporary approach, this exhibition focuses on Liu Qinghe’s work which showcases the rise and fall of a family during a century. With over 100 works of delicate ink and wash paintings, we can find during the century, an old man and a teenager that have spent their lives in their own way, as the cross-section of memory, their retrospective impressions will be showcased in front of naked living beings. What can be sensed and presented in the work, and the embodied meaning in this metaphor provides the audience with experience of the suffering and resignation between the struggles of a small family and turbulent society, between the individually subconscious protection and collective impulse and excitement. Through a dialogue between Liu Qinghe and his father, he tries to find the answer from a historical witness, however, time has clouded the traces of historical cleaning. All the modes of historical judgment have been learned, accumulated, and cultivated, if confronted with descriptions with no clear time and words with too many personal feelings, are almost subversive, the traces are increasingly becoming ambiguous. Neglecting or enlarging, picking up or dropping down, the fragments of memories are mostly stored in the personal paranoia inside.

Windfalls in disappointments, lives meaningful or meaningless, and the reality that life continues, are related to the “vernacular” without attitudes and standpoints. With the narrative way of a comic strip he is familiar with, in the straightforward yet humorous tone of a Tianjin native, Liu Qinghe tells the simplest stories of a small fry and his family while bringing about endless aftertastes for the audience, arousing multiple reflections on human beings, lives and social history.

Courtesy of the artist, translated by Sue/CAFA ART INFO.