Liu Xiaodong major retrospective 'The River Divides, The World Connects' at Taikang Art Museum, Beijing
25 November 2025
From 25 November 2025 to 31 March 2026, Taikang Art Museum presents The River Divides, The World Connects, a major retrospective by Liu Xiaodong. This is Liu's most systematic and comprehensive solo presentation to date, bringing together more than 70 original works created from the late 1970s to 2025, forming a condensed portrait of his over-four-decade artistic trajectory. Structured around two parallel threads—'East of the River / West of the River' and 'What to Paint / How to Paint'—the exhibition approaches Liu's work from both geographical and spiritual, thematic and methodological perspectives. Through the interweaving of time and space, it reveals the artist's continuous process of renewal and reinvention between lived reality and the act of painting.
Liu's work has always been inspired by his most immediate experiences of everyday life. He paints the streets of his hometown, the faces of his relatives and friends, and the figures of his friends, and then extends his gaze to the vast multitude of strangers across the world. These seemingly ordinary 'minor subjects' and 'everyday individuals' acquire new significance through his brush. From the grand narratives of the collectivist era to the truthful articulation of personal experience, Liu brings the 'small self' back to the center of art, using the human figure as the measure to re-measure the pulse of society and history. His 'realism' is not a mere replication of reality, but a form of action: through painting—this concrete medium—he reconnects the individual with the times.
The River Divides, The World Connects (East of the River, West of the River) is a symbolic proposition that structures Liu's artistic practice—referring not only to geographical crossings but also to the countercurrents of spirit and time. 'East of the River' represents homeland and roots; 'West of the River' signifies the distant elsewhere and the wider world. The former embodies the sedimentation of emotion and memory, while the latter points to the expansion of experience and method. Over more than 40 years, Liu has journeyed back and forth between these two banks, continually moving and turning back, forming a self-circulating realist methodology: what he paints and how he paints both arise from the palpable presence of human beings situated in time and space.
Find out more via Taikang Art Museum.
Image: ‘Liu Xiaodong major: The River Divides, The World Connects’ Taikang Art Museum, 2025. Courtesy Taikang Art Museum
