1342oC is the highest temperature when firing ceramics. The exhibition title, 1342oC is part of the series of case study research that has been undertaken by the OCAT Shenzhen, indicating how Liu Jianhua is working within and against the limits of “porcelain” as a medium, as well as the unpredictability of materials and firing process. This also invokes Liu Jianhua’s years of ongoing artistic experimentation with the process and results of “melting points” and relating to his active “igniting point” within the context of contemporary Chinese art.

In Liu Jianhua’s porcelains, the traditional and the contemporary, as well as the natural and everyday attitudes and feelings have been sedimented into the glazed background of these “objects.” His experimental method comprises a return to nature that allows him to present people and objects in a space that is simultaneously familiar and strange, revealing the slight but specific relationships between people and their objects in everyday life. In addition, the outside world achieves a new form for visual cognition, or rather, we pass through the dust of time to discover and rethink about the world as we know it.

About the Artist

Liu Jianhua was born in 1962 in Ji’an, Jiangxi Province, China. In 1989, he graduated from Fine Art of Sculpture at the Jingdezhen Ceramics Institute. He taught in Department of Sculpture at Yunnan Academy of Arts in Kunming from July 1989 to July 2004, since when he has been teaching at Department of Sculpture in Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai University. The artist now lives and works in Shanghai, China.

Liu Jianhua is one of China’s best-known contemporary artists who experiments with comprehensive materials. After graduating from college in 1989, and within a contemporary context, he started his own experimental practices. Liu’s porcelain and mixed media works reflect the economic and social changes in China as well as the problems that follow suit. His Regular Fragile series, first shown at the Chinese Pavilion, Venice Biennale in 2003, is composed of porcelain replicas of daily that privilege appearance and symbolism over function. In 2008, he shifted his previous close and direct attention on the problems emerged in China from globalization and sharp social changes to “no meaning, no content”, which declared the fairly new exploration of his creation with works Untitled in 2008 and therefore has developed his own system of expression for contemporary art.

Liu Jianhua’s works have been exhibited at a tour exhibition at Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2019, a solo exhibition at Fondazione Made in Cloister, Naples, Italy in 2018 and a Minimalist exhibition at National Gallery Singapore in 2018, Minimalism: Space.Light.Object at National Gallery Singapore, the international art exhibition VIVA ARTE VIVA of the 57th Venice Biennale 2017, The 1st Kiev Biennale of Contemporary Arts, 14th international Sculpture Biennale of Carrara, 17th Biennale of Sydney, Vancouver Biennale 2009-2011, The 3rd Nanjing Triennial, 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, The 1st Singapore Biennale, The 6thShanghai Biennale, Busan Biennale 2006, China Pavilion of the 50th Venice Biennale and exhibitions held by institutions including Tate Modern (London, UK), Center Pompidou (France), Asian Art Museum (San Francisco, USA), ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (Aros , Denmark), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, Japan), Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK), Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing, China), Power Station of Art (Shanghai, China), Kunstmuseum Bern (Bern, Switzerland), Today Art Museum (Beijing, China), Shanghai Art Museum (Shanghai, China), MoCA Shanghai (Shanghai, China), OCT Art and Design Gallery (Shenzhen, China), Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden, Germany), Shenzhen Art Museum (Shenzhen, China), Guangdong Museum of Art (Guangzhou, China), National Art Museum of China (Beijing, China), Groninger Museum (Groninger, The Netherlands), Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (Austria), Cobra Museum of Modern Art (The Netherlands), Kunst Der GegenwartSammlungEssl (Vienna, Austria), Hamburg Art Center (Hamburg, Germany), Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin, Ireland), Marseilles Museum of Contemporary Art (Marseilles, France), etc.

Liu Jianhua’s works have been collected by MOMA (New York, USA), Tate Modern (London, UK), Victoria&Albert Museum (London, UK), Asian Art Museum (San Francisco, USA), USC Pacific Asia Museum (Los Angeles, USA), White Rabbit Gallery (Sydney, Australia), Dior Paris Headquarter (Paris, France), LVMH Art Foundation (Paris, France), Salvatore Ferragamo Museum (Florence, Italy), K11 Art Foundation (Hong Kong, China), Bergen Art Museum (Bergen, Norway), M+ Sigg Collection (Hong Kong, China), YUZ Museum Shanghai (Shanghai, China), OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (Shanghai, China), Towada Art Center (Towada, Japan), Guggenheim Museum (New York, USA), The Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia), Shanghai World Expo National Organizing Committee (Shanghai, China), Shanghai Lujiazui World Financial Center (Shanghai, China), Santander Bank Art Center (Santander, Spain), Today Art Museum (Beijing, China), Shenzhen Art Museum (Shenzhen, China), Guangdong Museum of Art (Guangzhou, China), Queensland Art Gallery (Brisbane, Australia), Hara Museum of Contemporary Art (Tokyo, Japan), China Club (Hong Kong, China), He Xiangning Art Musem (Shenzhen, China), etc., and by private collections.

About the exhibition

Curators: Feng Boyi and Wang Jing

Dates: Dec 8, 2019 – Apr 7, 2020

Opening: Dec 8, 2019, 16:30

Venue: OCAT Shenzhen

Courtesy of the artist and OCAT Shenzhen, for further information please visit www.ocat.org.cn.