Liu Jianhua: Fluid voids

The Towada Art Center is excited to present the first-ever exhibition in Japan dedicated entirely to the work of Shanghai-based artist Liu Jianhua. Growing up in the city of Jingdezhen, ancient home of porcelain, Liu spent time working in a porcelain factory before studying sculpture, and now uses clay, stone, glass, pottery and other materials to create sculptural objects and installations on the themes of economic and social change in China, and the issues arising from this transformation.
For this exhibition the main gallery will play host to Discard (2002/2023), which features everyday items from plastic drink bottles to shoes, all crafted in porcelain. Having served their fleeting purpose, most of the items we use from day to day are abandoned and become broken, turning into what seems to be trash. Discard evokes modern lives surrounded by materials that do not revert to the earth, and how we persist in piling up on the land things that defy proper disposal. Other works spanning Liu’s career from early years to more recent times include his latest, Porcelain Tower (2022), which consists of just the mouths and necks of bottles and jars, plus the floating pillow of Regular/Fragile (2001–3), whose form leads to that of the later Mark in the Space (2010), part of the TAC permanent collection; as well as Trace (2011), which resembles black ink stains running down a wall, or the fluid glaze used to finish ceramic pieces. The exhibition title Fluid void calls to mind hollow pottery forms and the flow of glaze, but also indicates Liu’s approach to art-making, which involves incorporating in his works a “meaninglessness” devoid of either meaning or content. The title Fluid voids is also related to the current state of society, with its ever-expanding empty things both tangible and intangible. Here delicate, fragile pottery speaks of these most hollow of times.