A Tale of Two Cities

The artist Liu Xiaodong uncovers common themes of migration, community and belonging in two major new series, even though their subjects—rich and poor—paint vastly different stories

By Oliver Giles

“I deal with people who are extremely, extremely wealthy and the poorest people on Earth. But people are people”—LIU XIAODONG Liu Xiaodong spent the spring of 2019 in his Beijing studio, painting monumental portraits and landscapes from photos he had taken that year on a trip to the US-Mexico border. He worked for months trying to capture the arid, cactus-studded Texas terrain, the faces of migrants who had been arrested for crossing the border illegally and the uniforms of the American policemen who locked them up. In June, Liu decamped to London, where he set up his easel in plush homes in the city’s ritziest boroughs, painting wealthy Chinese expats who call the British capital home. The stark disparity between these places was not lost on Liu, 56. Within six months he’d…

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Tatler Hong Kong (Digital) - 1 Issue, September 2020

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