The China Project

157 Three Decades: The Contemporary Chinese Collection LIU Jianhua endnote 1 For further information on the cheongsam or qipao , see Claire Roberts (ed.), Evolution & Revolution: Chinese Dress 1700s – 1990s , Powerhouse Publishing, Sydney, 1997. Liu Jianhua’s ceramic sculptures reflect an important trend in contemporary Chinese art regarding representations of the human figure. The fragmented or disturbed body in these works is a conscious response to a literally disintegrating traditional society in modern China. While the economic reforms of the 1980s opened its commercial markets to Western trade (as previously seen in Shanghai in the late nineteenth century), China’s reforms also brought tremendous change and conflict. Liu’s works acknowledge the inevitable rise of consumerism in China, and examine the changing values in a society undergoing rapid transformation. Born in 1962 in J’ian, Jiangxi Province, Liu worked in the manufacturing section of the famous porcelain kilns at Jingdezhen from 1977 to 1985, when he decided to study sculpture. Now living and working between Jingdezhen and Kunming, Liu’s practice is at the forefront of contemporary Chinese sculpture. In Liu’s ‘Obsessive memories’ series, sculpted female forms dressed in traditional cheongsams pose on the curves of a chair or sofa. The figures are beautifully formed and sensuously posed — except they are without heads and arms. The disfigurement is jarring. Liu draws on porcelain’s historical reputation as a sought-after treasure with its qualities of refinement and fragility, and interrogates the role of beauty in contemporary life. In this series, it is the iconic Chinese cheongsam, rather than a face, that marks difference. The history of the cheongsam (meaning ‘long shirt’) or qipao begins in the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) under Manchurian rule. The Manchus established an Eight Banner system for military, political and production purposes. They were divided into eight groups, each identified by different coloured banners or qi ; they would wear vests bearing the colour of their qi , and thus were called ‘banner people’ or qiren , and their garments, qipao . 1 By the seventeenth century, the garment was accompanied by right-front openings below the neckline — a signifier of Manchurian rule, because they believed the right was superior to the left. This style rose to international attention during the 1920s and 1930s, when the port of Shanghai became a centre of foreign trade and investment, and the cheongsam entered fashionable wardrobes in both the East and West. In the twentieth century, the cheongsam was adapted and marketed as a quintessential Chinese dress. The use of traditional motifs and materials to make successful commodities is not dissimilar to the way many Chinese artists have successfully manipulated and experimented with other culturally identifiable mediums. Liu toys with this history of commodification in his porcelain sculptures. Hollow and faceless, they are also seductive and desirable. Liu Jianhua is attentive to this tension, creating sculptures that encapsulate both disruption and beauty. Obsessive memories 2002 Porcelain, modelled and with overglaze colours, incised / 54 x 33 x 37cm / Purchased 2004. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation