Questions from the Sky

Book excerpt: Hung Liu is one of the most important Chinese artists working in America today. Born in Changchun in 1948, a year before the founding of the Peopleâe(tm)s Republic of China, Liu experienced the Cultural Revolution first hand, spending four years of proletarian reeducation in the countryside. When she came to the United States in 1984 to attend the University of California, San Diego, she was among the first Mainland Chinese to study abroad and pursue an art career. For over thirty years, she has borne witness in her paintings to the tribulations of everyday people, past and present, and their hidden stories of social injustice. She grapples with issues of self, society, and politicsâe"as well as the challenge of reconciling disparate cultures. Her works fuse deep Asian history and aesthetics with contemporary methods and perception.This book documents her multimedia exhibition at the San Jose, California Museum of Art: Questions from the Sky: New Work by Hung Liu. In this very personal and poignant installation, she contemplated the cycles of life and death and the span of memory. The central work, Silver River, was a 70 foot long mural, intended to be transient and painted over. This book preserves a complex and moving exhibition by one of the greatest artists of our time.