Liu Kuo-Sung's Show Includes 36 Exciting New Works

Liu Kuo-sung’s one-man-show opened this morning at the Leland Art Galleries with quite a number of magnificent, new works by the artist.

 

More than half of the 36 works have never been shown in Taipei before. These include “White All Over at Sunset,” “Coming,” “Snow Storm,” and a favorite of many “A Moon for All Seasons” which until now the art lovers of Taipei have only seen in Liu’s catalogue.

 

Just back from the States after a semester at Stout State University as a visiting lecturer on painting, Liu won much praise from the American art world for his three one-man-shows at Chicago’s Cellar Gallery, at Omaha’s Justin Art Museum, and at Dallas’ Contemporary Gallery of Art.

Today Show
 

After seeing his opening – at the Cellar Gallery, NBC’s Today Show invited Liu on its program for a nine-minute interview.

 

The Governor of Illinois, Richard B. Ogilive also cabled him a congratulatory note saying, “I am pleased to congratulate both Liu Kuo-sung for his artful depiction of the Apollo Moon Flights, and the Cellar Gallery for its excellent choice in this special showing. Best of luck to all involved in the exhibition.”

 

The following are comments made by American art critics on Liu’s shows in the States the last six months:

Chicago Tribune

Chicago Tribune – Thomas Willis: “Liu has managed to find a point of contact – if not an entire interface – between the abstract and the merely stylized. If one is provided with his titles, “Thaw,” “Which is Earth?” “The Eternal Moon,” and so on, reading the message behind his fresh combination of media is suitably simple and soothing. Let to non-verbal, kinetic wanderings, however, the eye produces subjective stimuli of astonishing strength and vitality…

 

“The work displayed at the Cellar takes his development one step farther – back to the incredibly rich and concentrated work of his forebears. Ordering a special kind of paper, with rough textures and visible cotton fibres, he began painting with large ink brushes, forcing both surface and pigment. To this he has added some typically “Western” acrylics and sprays and extended his surfaces with carefully executed collage.

Felicitous Blend

“It is a most felicitous blend on all accounts. The scrolls and squares revel in a sort of definite ambiguity. The hard-edged circle dominates, asking us to consider it both as conceptual question and answer. But the landscapes below manage to be at once precise and mistily surreal. With a sure psychological instinct, Mr. Liu stops short of revelation. Those mystic, not quite perfect circles, with their wrinkled, desiccated surfaces, are as enigmatic as “2001’s” obelisk and a lot more interesting to look at.”

Leading Artist

Chicago Sun Times – Harold Haydon: “Called the leading Chinese artist of today by Richard E. Fuller, president and director of the Seattle Art Museum, Liu…has adapted traditional brush work in sumi ink to contemporary abstraction, retaining the ancient union of spontaneity with control, in paintings that are as up-to-date as Apollo 14, although mounted on silk in classic style.

 

“His latest series of paintings with collaged paper is called “Which is Earth?” In these compositions, small orbs float above the arc of far larger spheres. Brush work suggests the rhythms of mountain, sea and sky without depicting particulars, and the scale is cosmic.

Old and New

Chicago Today – Don Anderson: “This young artist from Taiwan (Liu) has combined many old and new media as traditional Chinese brush painting with contemporary silver paint from a spray bomb.

 

“He multiples the meanings of his work by injecting theory and design to shrink space and time together as a silver moon getting closer on a series of hanging scrolls.”

 

Skyline – Robert Glauber: “Most of the works are landscapes in a contemporary Chinese manner marked by very strong calligraphic elements. The artist had quite consciously abandoned the ancient six Canons of Chinese paintings. For them he has substituted a vigorous aesthetic that works very well for his artistic purposes.”