Liu Jian was born in 1981, by which time Nietzsche's short workDaybreakhad already been published for a century. Liu Jian has said thatDaybreakseems like a prophecy of his own life. If we deeply observe his creations, we find that it is the balance between the tension of the body and the rationality of painting that allows a certain positive vitality to keep rising. In Greek mythology, Apollo symbolizes rational spirit, while Dionysus represents the creative force of life instinct. The intersection of these two primal forces provides humanity with the weapons to fight against nihilism.
This exhibition’s three new pieces,The Pagan,The Wasteland-1, andThe Wasteland-2, continue to echo this theme. The inspiration for these pieces comes from the fusion of machinery and flesh in dystopian films, presenting a "post-apocalyptic" tone—“Civilization has undergone a great catastrophe, survivors have lost most of the resources, technology, or means of survival, struggling on the edge of existence.” In Liu Jian’s eyes, the fictional future’s "Dementes," a symbolic complex of pitiful and violent nihilists, is a reflection of our current lives and an epitome of everyone’s situation. On one hand, technology is advancing rapidly; on the other hand, the Third World and globalization are collapsing. Whether it is fighting for survival, collective activities, or daily encounters and separations, all are collisions and diffusions of "forces." Therefore, the intensity revealed in the chaos is not negative; the concrete images in the paintings seem to be twisted and scattered under the impact of these forces, with the body becoming a "battlefield" in a state of flux, resisting a highly uncertain world.
In his latest creations, Liu Jian directly uses black cloth as the canvas, where the light initially disappears, suggesting the infinite possibilities of time, space, and material energy, like a black hole. He compares his early creative activities to "archiving"—through material experiments such as washing and sun exposure on the canvas, he gained a solid and profound painting experience. In the exhibited worksThe Empress Continuum,The Stage,The Rio Fighter, andRhapsody, besides seeing Goya-like compositions and Caravaggio-like stage lighting, more details are hidden in the blackness, waiting to be revealed. Liu Jian reshaped the multi-layer painting method common in classical oil painting with modernist forms, eliminating the traditional indirect steps of underpainting and glazing. Each layer of dyeing on the canvas retains the traces of the previous one. The resulting colors cannot be mixed on a palette but can express the texture of the painting’s subject. On this basis, he used pastels, matte acrylics with pastel-like intensity, gypsum, and other materials to create a spatial illusion directly on the canvas, gradually pushing the rhythm in the paintings to the extreme.
If the rebellion against classical painting stands, Liu Jian, while inheriting the classical spirit, also internalized the experiences of suffering or pleasure of those classical deities (the real presence of human experience is what has been left behind in the form of images). In the process of learning and reshaping, these became part of Liu Jian’s biological genes. As seen in Bacon’s paintings, “Painting is undoubtedly the only thing that hysterically must integrate its own disasters; the painter must traverse the disaster, embrace it, and reemerge from it.” Therefore, like a great commander, Liu Jian instinctively carries these rhythms in his fluid brushstrokes, but unlike Bacon, they are not forces generated internally but point toward real space with the attitude of dawn.
This reality is startling in the present; the purpose of archaeology is not to indulge in utopian illusions but to face reality. For Liu Jian, both painting and the body are powerful mediums that transform sensations into real existence, connecting the past and the future. This coincides with literary critic Fredric Jameson’s concept of "archaeologies of the future": the surface story of "alternate history" reveals the real historical roots behind disillusionment. Future archaeology is not just a way to look back at the past, but through a process of concretized estrangement, it views current reality as part of future history. As a result, the contradictory tension brought about by the disarray and confusion of time, “the coexistence of presence and loss, obsession and regret, all surge in the mind through the overlapping temporal and spatial images.” Viewing Liu Jian’s works feels like a retro-futurist declaration, allowing us to rediscover a certain intensity of life.
I recall a recent meal with Liu Jian when we discussed the exhibition titleDaybreak. I instinctively wanted to search for Dylan Thomas’s poemDo Not Go Gentle into That Good Night. As I typed "Rage," the search bar automatically suggested the band Rage Against the Machine. I couldn’t help but laugh because Liu Jian was wearing a shirt with the band’s logo at the time. In the world of algorithms, everything seems to be a prophecy. FromDaybreakto Rage Against the Machine, it only took a moment of my sensation and the input from my fingertips.
Today, all of this has taken on new meaning; nothing is more important than experiencing the reality of the body. The body carries the cycles of human civilization, regrowing flesh and bones in the smooth world of simulacra. Perhaps life intelligence will persist forever, but only the flesh is the sole proof of human experience. Only by carrying the undying faith in civilization within the flesh can we resist each downfall, rise again and again, and softly chant:
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
