currently lives and works in Frankfurt am Main
Engaging deeply with the histories of design and manufacturing, and drawing from a background in fashion design and traditional East Asian painting, Liu’s practice examines the fragile ways meaning is constructed through material. The objects we touch or see every day—such as rice, clothes-drying racks, or architectural columns—are often taken for granted, yet they are the result of long civilizational processes, repeated iterations, and encounters between cultures. Liu traces their development across past and present, attending to how familiarity is produced through time and material, and how cultural displacement is gradually absorbed, normalized, or rendered invisible in this process.
Through this research, Liu transforms such everyday forms into performative surfaces that unfold intersecting narratives of cultural transmission. His practice is marked by a sense of material romanticism shaped by diaspora and cultural crossing—an ongoing negotiation between the desire to be legible and the impulse to let the surface dissolve.
Education
2022 - until now, Class Willem De Rooij, Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule, Frankfurt, Germany
2017 - 2021, Fashion Design, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, Beijing, China
Solo & Duo Exhibitions
2026Well, well, Art Basel Hong Kong with LINSEED
2025
Nocturnal Animals, LINSEED PROJECT, Shanghai, China
Four Apertures, Schein Space, Hangzhou, China
Selected Group Exhibitions
2026Basel Social Club, Basel, Switzerland
2025
A Mountain Within the City, Hangzhou Museum, Hangzhou, China
Constellations Warsaw, Turnus Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2024
Playing in the Dark: Side B, Uncharted Collective, Busan Biennale 2024, Busan, South Korea
The Sound of Defiance, Paludo S. Antonio Bridge Rio Dei Giadini, Venice, Italy
cā biān, Hafenplatz 1-3, Offenbach, Germany
Temple, Offenbach, Germany
Residency
Jul-Aug 2025 Scheinspace, Hangzhou, ChinaMar-Apr 2025 Hong Museum, Wenzhou, China
Aug-Nov 2024 HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme, Helsinki, Finland
Award
2026Shortlist of art viva 2027
2025
Städelschule Rundgang Award, Hiltner-Wolf-Stiftung
Contact
IG: dididilemma