Dong

China, 2005: the painter Liu Xiaodong travels to the Three Gorges region.    In Fengjie, the demolition work on the old town, which will soon be covered by the waters of the dam, fills the air with the ceaseless din of pickaxes and sledgehammers. The painter picks eleven workers from the demolition sites as the characters and models for a painting in the series that he is working on.Thailand, 2006: in Bangkok, the painter continues his series. This time, eleven young women are his models. The heat is overpowering and the light harsh. The painter doesn’t know the language or customs of the country. All he can do in such cases, he says, is “paint faces and bodies without  any exotic landscapes or settings.”