LI LIHONG

Early Years

Chinese artist Li Lihong was born in Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province, a region historically known for producing the country’s finest traditional porcelain, including for the collections of royal emperors and for export.

Li Lihong studied at the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University of Beijing, where he graduated with a BFA in 1996. In 2005, he gained his MFA at the Jingdezhen Ceramics Institute. Li Lihong has learned from ceramic art grand master Qin Xiling. He lives in Shanghai, where he is professor of Chinese porcelain work at Fudan University.

Li Lihong Artworks

Porcelain Sculptures

Li Lihong is known for his distinctive porcelain sculptures, which combine traditional Chinese ceramic arts and stylised imagery with western cultural iconography.

Incorporating the instantly recognisable logos of global brands such as McDonald’s, Nike, Mickey Mouse, Coca-Cola, the Michelin Man, and Apple, as well as currency symbols, numerals, and Chinese stars, Li Lihong examines the intertwining of cultures, politics, and economies in an increasingly globalised world.

Li Lihong’s practice can be seen to sympathise with the 20th-century Pop art movement in the west, where everyday objects, advertising, and cultural references made their way into artworks as a defiant response to traditional outlooks and approaches to fine art. Li Lihong’s works further subvert these concerns, ascribing capital and cultural value to the inherent mass-produced nature of the brands they mimic. Juxtaposing symbols of consumerism with traditional earthenware processes, the artist makes subtle references to China’s own historic export and global trade of valuable porcelain wares.

McDonald’s - One Hundred Kids Play (2007) comprises the distinctive golden arches rendered in porcelain—albeit covered in the artist’s illustrations of cherub-like children painted in the traditional Chinese aesthetic. McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in China in 1990, in Shenzhen, during a period of increasing American economic presence in the country following the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.

Li Lihong’s ‘Apple China’ series (2007—ongoing) presents the American multinational tech company’s iconic fruit logo in lustrous silver or gold, the bitten interior revealing blue and white waves. Other variations see the entire surface of the apple painted in blue and white imagery such as dragons and clouds, with the bite a plain block colour. Lihong’s Apple China series speaks to globalisation and the entangled international manufacturing chain—with Apple today having a significant manufacturing base in China, as well as retail operations for Chinese consumers.

Exhibitions

Selected solo exhibitions by Li Lihong include Galerie LOFT, Paris (2020); Consumption Era, 3D Printing Center, Jingdezhen (2018); and Vigor — China, ART LABOR Gallery, Shanghai (2015).

Selected group exhibitions include Marc Leuthold & Li Lihong: Hand & Machine, ART LABOR Gallery, Shanghai (2019); Art & Peace — The Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Works of Art, Museum Africa, Johannesburg (2019); Five at Nine, Hollis Taggart, New York (2018); Art & Peace — An Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Art, Mall Gallery, London (2017); Perception of China, Art and Peace: Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Art Works, Helsinki SubCenter, Finland (2017); 10 Years of Love, ART LABOR Gallery, Shanghai (2017); Earth, Fire and Life: Six Thousand Years of Chinese Ceramics, Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, Albuquerque, New Mexico (2016); Disney 90th Anniversary: When Disney Meets Contemporary Art, HOW Museum, Wenzhou and Guangzhou Baiyun International Convention Center (2014); and The New Blue and White, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2013).

Li Lihong has exhibited in events including the 5th Annual Ceramic Art Biennial, China (2016); 6th Shanghai Biennale (2006); 2nd Beijing International Art Biennale (2005); and the 3rd World Ceramic Biennale, Icheon (2005).

Fairs and Collections

Li Lihong has participated in international art fairs including The Armory Show, New York (2011); SOFA New York (2011), SOFA Chicago (2008, 2007); Asian Contemporary Art Fair, New York (2008, 2007); and Shanghai Art Fair (2006).

Li Lihong’s works are held in collections worldwide, including at the Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou; Shanghai Art Museum; Bank of Singapore; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Durham University Museums, U.K.; and Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Utah.

Misong Kim | Ocula | 2021