Artist: Liu Dan
Date: 1991
Size: 206 x 305 cm
Technique: Watercolor
Shortly after finishing his monumental Ink Handscroll, Liu decided to try using watercolors for the first time, choosing a small family dictionary as his subject. Published circa 1937, the dictionary contained neither simplified characters nor Communist-inflected rhetoric. Liu’s Dictionary, therefore, can be read as a subtle commentary on how language influences the cultural identity and personal freedom of its users. Through meticulously creating effects that mimic the original object’s age and use, Liu insists on a microscopic way of looking—examining an ordinary object methodically and painstakingly, then using his art to transform it into something monumental.
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