fondazione prada presents storytelling, a solo show by chinese artist liu ye

milan’s fondazione prada presents storytelling, a solo show by chinese painter liu ye curated by udo kittelman. running from 30 january to 28 september 2020, the exhibition follows the first iteration held in 2018 at the prada rong zhai in shanghai, and it features a selection of 35 paintings realized from 1992 onwards.

all images by roberto marossi, courtesy of fondazione prada

born and based in beijing, liu ye’s work expresses an intimate and sensual imagination, that feeds on sources related to literature, history of art and popular culture from the western and eastern world. when presented at the prada rong zhai, the storytelling exhibition related harmoniously with the 1918 residence’s original furnishings, decorations and colors, creating relationships with the spaces. contrary to this, in milan the paintings will generate a chromatic and material contrast with the fondazione’s concrete walls and industrial environment. this geographic dislocation will contribute to focus on the ability of liu ye to create a personal pictorial universe, which does not align with any particular artistic movement.

throughout the show, liu ye’s work generates atmospheres which evoke introspection, purity and suspension. this is due to the artist’s stylistic features that resonate with fairy-tales that coexist with a sense of humour and a parodic vein. by combining different elements and sources, ye’s paintings create dialogues on memory, observation, imagination and artistic education, pervaded by a certain ambiguity as they seem suspended between reality and invention — or better, a subjective reality. ‘even though I have never become an abstract artist, I am nonetheless interested in stripping down narrative and simplifying,’ comments liu ye.

as udo kittelmann comments, ‘I experienced his paintings as sensitive pictorial messages relayed between two worlds that are often viewed as contradictory: western cultures versus asian cultures. even back then, liu ye’s paintings struck me as manifesting a dialectical constellation, for his work is not only interwoven in many ways with china’s manifold cultural developments; it also bears witness to a profound knowledge of the history of european culture and painting. his pictures are grounded equally in traditional eastern and western intellectual and artistic trends, conjoining the strengths of the past and the future.’