Overturn The Centre | Liu Kuo-sung

Overturn the Centre is an art project initiated by contemporary art critic, collector and curator Rudy Tseng, which aims to establish a definitive art historical narrative through an artist’s own testimony. In this transcription of Liu Kuo-sung’s spoken account of his creative life and artistic philosophy, the project preserves a precious record of an artistic practice critical to the profound transformation of modern ink painting that began in the 1950s and continues today.

Having long observed the development of Asian art, Rudy Tseng realized through his research and collecting that many pivotal figures lacked first hand oral records and archives. He felt a growing sense of urgency: if these crucial artistic thoughts and historical experiences were not documented and published, they would fade away with the passage of years. In this realization lay the genesis of this book.

In 2021, while the world lay paralysed by the pandemic, Rudy Tseng engaged in a series of long-form, in-depth conversations at Liu Kuo-sung’s studio in Taipei. Months of video and textual documentation were then distilled into the eleven dialogues presented in this volume—a cultural archive completed against a pandemic backdrop.

The book’s title is drawn from Liu’s famous 1970s slogan, “Overturn the Center Tip, Overturn the Brush,” symbolizing his lifelong commitment to challenging existing frameworks and driving the modernization of ink painting. The text is a significant intellectual document on creativity, education and art history, recording an artist’s re-envisioning of the future of ink painting in the context of global modernity.

As a publication project of the Liu Kuo-sung Foundation, this book furthers the Foundation’s mission to research, archive and promote the artist’s work and documentation, offering the global art community a new imaginative perspective on ink art.
“︀

Overturn the Centre is a long-awaited and significant publication which offers an insight into the life and inner thoughts of Liu Kuo-sung, one of the most important artists in the history of Chinese art. Liu is a pioneering figure in the global discourse of modern and contemporary ink painting, a fierce advocate for the modernisation of Chinese painting and a seminal innovator who charted the course of the modernist avant-garde in Taiwan.

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EUGENE TAN, Director, National Gallery Singapore
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Book Video
Works in the Book
Cover and Illustrations in the book
ONE THE MAKING OF AN ARTIST
- Nude Woman
  裸婦
  1958
  Oil on canvas
  49 × 65 cm
  
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TWO FIFTH MOON
- Railway Tunnel at Mt Ali
  阿里山森林鐵路
  1954
  Watercolor on paper
  54 × 38 cm
  –
  Black-and-white Photograph
  
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FOUR TRADITION AND INNOVATION
- Yin Mountain
  陰山
  1962
  Ink and color with collage on paper
  70 × 34.5 cm
  Water, Pine and Stone Retreat Collection, Hong Kong
  
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FIVE OVERSEAS
SIX INTO SPACE
- Midnight Sun III
  午夜的太陽 III
  1970
  Ink and color with collage on paper
  139.5 × 375 cm
SEVEN EDUCATOR
- Heaven Lake
  天池
  1982
  Ink and color on paper
  71.5 × 93.5 cm
  Shandong Museum, Jinan
EIGHT LIU KUO-SUNG TORNADO
NINE TO NEW HEIGHTS
- Source
  源
  1989
  Ink and color on paper
  1952 × 366 cm
  
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TEN INK PAINTING IN FUTURE LANDS
ELEVEN THE OCEAN OF ART

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