When a beautiful woman is present and desire rises, what do we see in Liu Jianan’s pictures?
On the Chinese page, Wikipedia describes eroticism (qingse) as: “Eroticism is a depiction that has sexual implications. The primary difference between the erotic and the pornographic (seqing) is that the erotic is intended to cause sensory stimulation. Sometimes sexuality is used to express philosophical or artistic ideas, or sexual content is used to reflect on society. The primary goal of the pornographic is to inspire sexual desire in the viewer, but the boundary between the two is often rather indistinct.” Interestingly, if we look to the translation, both Chinese pages direct to the same English word: “erotic.”
The word “erotic” also has a complex range of meanings for Western artists and sociologists. As people currently understand modern life and art, the concept of the erotic has gradually become more neutral, or even come to have some definite positive associations. Liu Jianan’s work might fall into this conception of the erotic. At the very least, there is an obvious tendency: the eroticism in the images is related to the body, most often the female body, and specifically, the young female body. In a broader sense, the works also present the unique value of the female psyche in modern society. As we read their body language, we see the power of women’s bodies, which present their doubts, confusion, resentment, and even a criticism of their current realities. All of this attempts to break the conceptual restraints of tradition, and to push humanity’s internal desires to the broadest possible extreme, especially the possibility of unleashing the power of sexuality.
More than one hundred years ago, British naturalist photographer Peter Henry Emerson said, “Photography is terrifyingly truthful.” Documenting the body makes it harder for people to ignore the constraints of real people and real circumstances, and this produces a tendency towards overly intense sexuality. It goes without saying that this causes viewers to lose perspective. In the past, too many psychological constraints were placed on the Chinese people, but contemporary China has space for release; anything and everything can appear because people’s instincts and impulses are now considered normal. As British art historian Kenneth Clark wrote, “No nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling, even though it be only the faintest shadow — and if it does not do so, it is bad art and false morals.” Of course, contemporary photographers may have taken this idea further than other people, which inevitably draws us to the question of eroticism. In the contemporary moment, eroticism has once again become a focus of attention as a controversial wonder of contemporary society. However, it is also inappropriate to place sexuality outside the realm of beauty. In essence, sexuality and beauty can be one and the same; in erotic photography, a large part of beauty is sexuality. To a significant extent, beauty is only the premeditated performance of sexuality, the romanticization of sexuality, or the shaming of sexuality; it is a mysterious and magical transformation. Therefore, acknowledging the proper place of sexuality in aesthetic activities is an important part of why eroticism should be valued.
Here, I suddenly discovered that eroticism was not very important to Liu Jianan. Eroticism is only an exterior layer meant to draw the eye, and behind this eroticism, the photographer conceals deeper power, which is a social direction and critique. In a moment, the beauty of the erotic makes nearly every viewer lose proper judgment, myself included. When we awaken from this spell, we are astonished by the cleverness of Liu’s strategy, especially the traces left by the
collisions of time and space that constitute his unique philosophy. These erotic pictures give the viewer a more relaxed sense of time and space, which is based in his unique understanding of life. Here, the body can only be a vessel, even if it is an important one.
These ideas brought to mind Zhu Xinjian, a literati painter who passed away fairly recently. For a time, his name was all over the art world. In the 1980s, Zhu Xinjian’s “The Golden Lotus” series was shown at the National Art Museum of China. Those improperly dressed women disturbed older artists, who called the paintings “feudalistic rubbish” or “obscene.” In the 1990s, Zhu tired of painting more traditional ladies, and his aesthetic tastes moved towards modern women wearing stocking and shorts, who enjoyed karaoke in their spare time. In the book Resolving to be Happy, he wrote, “I don’t like seeing women wearing skirts. I like seeing women wearing ‘trousers, because it’s sexy, almost pornographic. The latter is most important, and a fundamental problem.” Liking something is enough, but wouldn’t it be better if we could see more than simply what he likes?
In Liu Jianan’s photographs, the word “spring” in the Spring Festival migration, Spring Festival itself, and the Spring Festival variety show tells of a spring-time desire that is difficult to showcase in a time of great restraint. In other words, under the erotic exterior of spring-time desires, at the moment when even the last frontier cannot be held, can we still choose how to retreat?
Erotic pictures are certainly pleasing to the eye, and over the last two years, the prices of Zhu Xinjian’s erotic paintings have risen to unimaginable heights. Over the last two years, I have found myself preferring to collect pictures with erotic elements, not simply because they are nice looking; their rarity enhances their value. Regardless of how much social criticism lies behind the eroticism, I can also keep them until they rise in value...

Liu Jianan (b. 1977, Harbin, China), lives and works in Beijing, China.

Education:

2003 MA in Photography Practice, Academy of Art and Design, Tsinghua University, China

Bio:

Focusing on female figures in front of the greater background of Chinese society, Liu Jianan’s works were widely discussed online for his famous series of works titled as Chunyun (The great migration during Chinese New Year) and Chunjie (Chinese New Year). These two series of works are created in 2011 and 2015 and have viewed by half billion people online. Liu Jianan is also a fashion photographer whose works are widely commissioned by various Chinese magazines including For Him Magazine, VISION, COSMOBRIDE, Chinese GQ, and CIRCLE. Series of works Chunyun and Chunjie were exhibited in "Seven Views - Seven Solo Exhibtions of Seven Artists" in Song Zhuang Museum of Fine Art, Beijing in August 2015. His works were also presented at SWAB 2015 Contemporary Art Fair in Barcelona, Spain.