Liu Shiming: Art Returns to Life
This video traces the life and artistic journey of Liu Shiming, from his early training at the Central Academy of Fine Arts to the years he spent living and working in the countryside, where his understanding of sculpture began to take shape.
Drawing from everyday life—farmers, workers, ordinary gestures—Liu developed a practice grounded in memory, observation, and lived experience. His later work, shaped through teaching and reflection, centers on movement, vitality, and the human spirit.
For Liu Shiming, sculpture was never separate from life. It was a way of recording the world as he experienced it, and of staying connected to the people and moments that defined his time.
We are pleased to announce the launch of the Liu Shiming Internship, established in partnership with the Guggenheim New York @guggenheim !
Beginning Summer 2026, one Liu Shiming Intern will join the Guggenheim’s Summer Internship Program each year, gaining direct experience within a leading institution for modern and contemporary art. This opportunity will transition into a permanent endowment in 2027, ensuring sustained annual support in perpetuity.
Through this collaboration, we are expanding our commitment to supporting emerging arts professionals and advancing educational access across global cultural institutions.
Application details are on the Guggenheim’s website.
Application link will be avaliable in the bio soon.
The Liu Shiming Art Foundation presents Archives, an exhibition bringing into dialogue the photographic collection of Thomas Sauvin @thomas_sauvin and the sculptures of Liu Shiming, on view from February 24 to May 17, 2026 in New York.
Drawn from Sauvin’s long-term project @beijing_silvermine , the handmade C-type silver prints originate from hundreds of thousands of negatives recovered from a recycling factory in Beijing. Produced by amateurs between 1985 and 2005, these images form an intimate record of a society in transition—street scenes, family portraits, celebrations, and everyday objects that quietly construct a collective memory.
In resonance, Liu Shiming’s sculptures extend this attention to the ordinary. Children, workers, animals, and modest gestures are translated into bronze, ceramic, and drawing—where fleeting attitudes acquire volume, density, and duration. One collects, the other interprets. One reveals the archive of daily life, the other transforms it into enduring form.
Opening Reception
February 24, 2026, 5–8pm
Artist Talk: Conversation with Thomas Sauvin & Maëlle Ebelle
February 24, 2026, 6:30–7:30pm
Location
Liu Shiming Art Gallery
15 E 40th Street, 5FL
RSVP in bio
We were pleased to take part in The Art of Intimacy symposium on May 8 in Venice, presented in conjunction with our current exhibition Intimate Unthinkables.
Bringing together artists, curators, critics, and theorists across art, design, and critical inquiry, including Richard Vine, Lily Wei, Hank Willis Thomas, Harmonia Rosales, and many others, the symposium opened rich conversations around intimacy, materiality, memory, and human connection.
A particularly moving moment came from Liu Wei, son of Liu Shiming, who shared personal stories rarely known to the public, reflecting on the artist’s lifelong struggle with physical disability, his years living among ordinary communities in rural China, and the extraordinary intensity with which he devoted himself to making art.
The day concluded with a reception at Palazzo Mora featuring live performances and music, extending the conversations of the symposium into a more embodied and communal gathering within the exhibition itself.
We are grateful to all speakers and participants for such a thoughtful gathering, and warmly invite those in Venice to visit Intimate Unthinkables at Palazzo Mora throughout the season.
Opening moments from Intimate Unthinkables at Palazzo Mora, Venice.
Presented by the Liu Shiming Art Foundation in collaboration with European Cultural Centre Italy @ecc_italy as part of ECC Italy’s Personal Structures 2026, the exhibition brings together works by Adrian Elisheva Parr Zaretsky (A.Z) and Liu Shiming (1926–2010) in a thoughtful dialogue across generations, materials, and cultural contexts.
The exhibition includes a meaningful selection of Liu Shiming’s sculptures and works, offering visitors in Venice an opportunity to encounter his deeply humanistic vision within an international contemporary context. Rooted in everyday life, human connection, labor, memory, and tenderness, Liu’s work reflects a quiet sensitivity to the dignity, resilience, and emotional lives of ordinary people.
Shown alongside works on paper and canvas by A.Z, Liu Shiming’s sculptures enter into a conversation about intimacy not as sentimentality, but as a way of seeing, remembering, and relating to others. Across the galleries, gestures of touch, solitude, care, and proximity become reflections on vulnerability, attachment, and shared humanity.
Thank you to everyone who joined us for the opening, and to all of our collaborators, guests, and supporters who helped make this occasion so meaningful.
Intimate Unthinkables is now on view at Palazzo Mora, Venice through November 22, 2026.
Presented as part of ECC Italy Personal Structures 2026.
At the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, the Liu Shiming Art Foundation presents Intimate Unthinkables, a two-person exhibition featuring Adrian Elisheva Parr Zaretsky (A.Z) and Liu Shiming (1926–2010).
On view May 9 – November 22, 2026 at Palazzo Mora, Venice, as part of Personal Structures 2026, the exhibition brings into dialogue contemporary works on paper and sculpture across distinct historical and cultural contexts. Through a series of carefully staged juxtapositions, the presentation reflects on intimacy not as sentiment, but as a condition shaped through proximity, memory, and everyday gesture.
Spanning decades of practice, the works trace how moments of closeness—between figures, bodies, and environments—carry both personal and collective resonance, offering a quiet yet persistent counterpoint to broader structures of distance and disconnection.
If you are in Venice, we invite you to join The Art of Intimacy symposium in connection with the exhibition on May 8.
RSVP and full schedule via link in bio.
Thomas Sauvin @thomas_sauvin reflects on the origins of the Beijing Silvermine project—how a chance encounter with discarded negatives in Beijing led to an ongoing archive of everyday life.
In this short interview, he shares the early stages of building the collection, his approach to working with vernacular photography, and how these images construct a collective memory of a rapidly changing society.
On view in Archives, the exhibition brings Sauvin’s photographic negatives into dialogue with Liu Shiming’s sculptures. Together, they trace parallel attentions to ordinary life—one through accumulation and preservation, the other through material translation and form.
Archives: Liu Shiming × Thomas Sauvin
On view through May 17, 2026
Liu Shiming Art Gallery, New York
We’re pleased to share that the Liu Shiming Art Foundation has joined @world.art.foundations as a member.
World Art Foundations is an international network of nonprofit organizations dedicated to supporting artists, fostering collaboration, and strengthening sustainable cultural ecosystems across regions. By connecting institutions with shared commitments, the network creates a platform for exchange, research, and long-term impact within the global arts landscape.
As a nonprofit foundation, we are committed to advancing dialogue around artistic practice, material inquiry, and the social conditions that shape artistic production. Alongside exhibitions, our work extends to public programs, artist talks, screenings, and community-based initiatives, as well as ongoing support through artist grants, educator awards, and an international scholarship network.
We’re honored to be part of this growing global community and look forward to contributing to its shared mission through continued collaboration and exchange.
We’re proud to announce a new international partnership with University College London @ucl 🤍, launching a permanent Liu Shiming Art Scholarship to support MA / MFA students at the Slade School of Fine Art.
The Slade School of Fine Art, part of one of the world’s leading universities, has long been a center for critical, research-led artistic practice. We are honored to support artists whose work reflects the humanistic values and sculptural spirit central to Liu Shiming’s legacy.
Expanding a global network of Liu Shiming Scholars—across borders, across generations.
From RESEARCH to PUBLICATION. A closer look at Liu Shiming: Sculpting Empathy.
This video brings together interview footage and excerpts from Richard’s book launch talk, following the development of the monograph from early research to publication. Richard Vine, former managing editor of Art in America and author of New China, New Art (2011), has long worked on Chinese contemporary art. He first traveled to Beijing in fall 2023 to begin archival research, building on this background. At the outset, he noted, “this is not what I usually write about,” but found that “the more time I spent with the work, the more it started to speak to me,” shaping the direction of the project.
The book developed through over two years of research and writing, drawing on primary materials, translated texts, and historical sources. It brings together Liu Shiming’s life and work with a broader account of 20th-century Chinese social and political history, alongside art historical analysis. After the manuscript was completed, the project moved into production, with nearly a year of collaboration with design studio to develop the book’s structure and visual form, followed by coordination with publishers. The publication was later presented at the London Book Fair.
Richard Vine describes a shift in Liu Shiming’s work from “programmatic art according to an ideology” to direct observation of everyday life. He explains the title through this perspective, noting that “empathy is when you share that grief,” pointing to the way the artist engages with lived experience and human connection.
A great afternoon with a group of talented high school students through the Drawing All-Stars Fellowship Program, a collaboration between The Drawing Center and Teen Art Salon.
The Drawing Center(@drawingcenter ) is a leading nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing drawing as a vital contemporary practice. Teen Art Salon(@adolescentartarchive ) is a vibrant platform supporting young artists in developing their voices and engaging with the arts community.
The Drawing All-Stars Fellowship program brings students into direct engagement with artworks and space through observation and sketching, encouraging them to think, look, and respond through drawing.
At the Liu Shiming Art Foundation, we’re proud to support the next generation of artists and create space for learning, exchange, and creative growth.
Thank you to everyone who joined us, and special thanks to Professor Joe Lawton🌟
Last night we hosted Looking at the Collection of Thomas Sauvin: Archives of Chinese Families and Friends Photographs, bringing together Joe Lawton and Maëlle Ebelle for a conversation around archives, memory, and everyday images.
Beginning with an exhibition walkthrough and followed by a lecture and discussion, the evening explored how vernacular photographs shift in meaning when removed from their original context and reintroduced as part of an archive or exhibition.
