Liu Jianhua (1962-)
Pop modern porcelain to installations – trash accumulations of ready-made objects Liu Jianhua, a visual-craftsman.
Many of his works feature a refinement of form and a glossy sheen in keeping with the Chinese tendency towards glazed surfaces.
By the age of 12, he was learning porcelain-work techniques at the imperial kilns of Jingdezhen. Hard on the outside, yet fragile, porcelain is a fitting medium for addressing the dialectics of surface and depth. It is a statement of identity. Several thousand years of history have made porcelain a forerunner to Made in China export products. As used by Liu Jianhua, it becomes a strategic way into the international contemporary art scene, led by the categorizing, exoticism-seeking western world, despite grand speeches on globalisation, in which pluralism, it seems, can have varied meanings.
Liu Jianhua’s use of porcelain, however, is far from systematic. Under the influence of the eighties New Wave, he rejected it in favour of the possibilities of fibreglass sculpture, and in his more recent work Liu Jianhua’s interest has turned to the use of ready-made objects in large-scale accumulation-installations, as in Yiwu Survey (2006).
In December 2007, Liu Jianhua will be presenting a brand new piece created specially
for the Paul Frèches Gallery : the “Unreal Scene” installation, which will be exhibited with photographs (2005-2007) of Shanghai becoming a kind of eerie casino…
Unreal scene (2005-2007)
December 7th 2007 – February 9th 2008
Galerie Paul Frèches
WWW.PAULFRECHES.COM
12, rue André Barsacq
75018 Paris
TEL+ 33 (0) 1 53 09 21 12
FAX + 33 (0) 1 53 09 23 22
Metro : Abbesses, line 12 / Anvers, line 2
Bus stop : Chappe or Drevet line Montmartrobus
In Montmartre : just climb the stairways along the Funiculaire
(first street on your left).
Wednesday to Saturday, 2:00 to 7:00 pm, and by appointment,
closed on Bank Holidays.
The gallery will be closed on December 25 to January 2, 2008.
After a rather rich week for contemporary exhibitions, a new one opens up at the Bellevilloise: the 2007 edition of "Young Creation". The international exhibition for contemporary arts will take place from November 2nd to November 11th, 2007 in Paris. After "Slick 07", the "FIAC" not to mention "Show Off", Professionals and general audience will be able to discover the latest in peculiar trends from over 60 young artists, French and from abroad, selected from over a thousand candidates. 
