Listen to me carefully, you bunch of snobs. If you think contemporary Chinese art is limited to bland replicas of millennial calligraphy or banal reproductions of misty landscapes, it’s because you’ve never laid eyes on the works of Li Xuegong. This Beijing-born artist, who studied under masters like Li Kufen and Ouyang Zhongshi, shatters traditional codes while honoring their deep essence. It’s a balancing act that only the greats can achieve.
When I observe his monumental “A Thousand Miles of the Taihang Mountains Forged in Iron” (8 x 23.6 meters), I do not simply see a landscape. I see a philosophical statement on the relationship between man and nature that would have made Heidegger himself smile. Li does not paint the mountain, he becomes the mountain. And we with him. This fusion of subject and object strangely recalls the concepts developed by Gilles Deleuze on deterritorialization and reterritorialization [1]. Far from being a mere passive contemplation, immersion in Li Xuegong’s work is an active experience where the spectator participates in the creation of a new conceptual space.
In his series “Drunk, I venture into the plum forest thirty li deep” [1 li (里) = approximately 500 meters], Li deploys impressive technical mastery that is never a pretext for gratuitous virtuosity. His technique serves a vision. And what a vision! A vision that transcends the mere framework of traditional Chinese painting to offer us a profound reflection on transcendence. Deleuze wrote in “What is Philosophy?” that “art thinks no less than philosophy, but it thinks through affects and percepts” [2]. The affects and percepts deployed by Li in this series are of rare power, pushing the limits of what was believed possible in ink painting.
Unlike many contemporary Chinese artists who reject their cultural heritage to embrace an often superficial internationalization, Li has understood that the universal is found in the well-understood particular. His training with traditional masters has not hindered his originality but nourished it. As art critic Wang Wei rightly noted: “His most distinctive feature is introducing calligraphy into painting. As a painter of flowers and birds in the xieyi (impressionistic) style, calligraphy must first be solid” [3]. This fusion of calligraphy and painting is not new in itself, but Li takes it to unexplored territories.
Look at his series on plum blossoms. The force emanating from it is almost physical, as if the branches were about to burst from the canvas to strike you. The composition is full, the atmosphere palpable, the technique impeccable. But reducing his work to these qualities would be missing the essential: the philosophical depth that underlies each brushstroke. Li does not paint to decorate your bourgeois living rooms. He paints to question your relationship with the world, to shake your certainties.
What strikes in his work is this ability to reconcile apparent opposites: tradition and innovation, vigor and delicacy, spontaneity and control. This dialectic refers us to the contemporary architecture of Tadao Ando, where raw concrete coexists with the subtlety of natural light. Like the Japanese architect who creates sanctuaries of serenity in urban chaos, Li finds harmony in the tension between opposing forces. Tadao Ando seeks “to create a place that is not simply a physical space, but an emotional space” [4]. Similarly, Li’s landscapes are not mere topographical representations, but emotional spaces where the spectator is invited to lose themselves to better find themselves.
This architectural dimension is found in the very structure of his compositions. Take “Tai Hang Qian Ren” (The Taihang Series), where the mountain is not just a subject, but literally becomes the architecture of the painting, its framework and its flesh. Li constructs his work like an architect, with particular attention to solids and voids, to the circulation of energy, to the solidity of the whole. As Sun Ke rightly noted: “creating a great work as if creating a small piece is a significant exploration in the art of Chinese painting” [5]. Li succeeds in this feat of maintaining the intimacy of the small format in monumental works.
Architecture, like Li’s painting, is an art of space. But where the architect must confront the physical constraints of gravity and materials, Li is only limited by his imagination and his ability to master ink and water on xuan paper. This apparent freedom is nevertheless counterbalanced by a rigorous discipline. As Tadao Ando noted: “The more limited a space is, the stronger it becomes” [6]. Li understands this maxim and knows that total freedom only produces chaos and insignificance. It is in the constraint of tradition that he paradoxically finds his greatest freedom of expression.
His relationship to space is not only formal, it is also conceptual. In Chinese tradition, empty space is not absence but presence, presence of air, of vital breath (qi). Similarly, in Tadao Ando’s architecture, void is not a lack but a plenitude, a space where light and shadow dance and where the visitor can project their thoughts. In Li’s paintings, the unpainted spaces are as important as the ink strokes, creating a dynamic tension that activates the entire surface.
What I particularly appreciate about Li is his ability to create works that respond both to the demands of Chinese painting tradition and to the questions of our time. In this sense, his work is profoundly contemporary without yielding to fleeting fashions. He creates a painting rooted in history but turned towards the future. As Nie Xiaoyang so aptly put it: “There are many painters who, through hard work, can become craftsmen, but never artists. Art requires talent, but also deep culture” [7]. Li undeniably possesses both.
This cultural depth is manifested in his ability to integrate references to classical Chinese literature and poetry into his work, thus creating a work that resonates with centuries of intellectual tradition. It is no coincidence that Li is also a writer and poet. His artistic vision transcends narrow categories to embrace a holistic conception of creation. His novel “Snow Storm in the Great Wilderness” published in 2002 testifies to this creative versatility.
Moreover, this ability to navigate between different forms of artistic expression is characteristic of great creators. Deleuze spoke of “lines of flight” to describe these trajectories that escape rigid categorizations and open up new spaces for thought. Li constantly creates such lines of flight, refusing to be confined to a restrictive definition of what a contemporary Chinese painter should be.
His approach to the materiality of ink also shows a deep understanding of contemporary issues. At a time when Western art often loses itself in excessive dematerialization, Li reaffirms the importance of matter while transcending it. Ink is not just a medium, it is a living element with which the artist dialogues. In his series “Wild Flowers by the Tens of Thousands,” the material density of the ink creates an undeniable physical presence that contrasts with the ethereal lightness of the represented flowers.
This tension between materiality and transcendence brings us back to Tadao Ando’s architecture, where the massiveness of raw concrete is counterbalanced by the delicacy of the light that passes through it. As the architect wrote: “Light is the origin of all presences” [8]. In Li’s work, ink plays this original role, the source of all visual presences.
Li’s relationship to architecture is not limited to conceptual analogies. He himself designed his own museum in Songzhuang, in the suburbs of Beijing. This space, which extends over more than 3000 square meters, is an extension of his artistic vision in the built domain. As Tang Shihe noted: “His painting style is a reflection of his character” [9]. His museum is also a reflection of this character: generous, ambitious, rooted in tradition but resolutely contemporary.
What makes Li great is precisely this ability to create a coherent universe that far exceeds the framework of traditional Chinese painting. His work constitutes a complex system of thought that questions our relationship to the world, to tradition, to creation. In this sense, he joins the fundamental concerns of Deleuzian philosophy which seeks to think becoming rather than being, movement rather than fixity.
The French philosopher wrote: “Art is not a goal, it is a process” [10]. This dynamic conception of artistic creation is perfectly embodied by Li who never ceases to reinvent himself, to question his own achievements to explore new expressive territories. His prolific production, paintings, calligraphies, writings, testifies to this creative vitality that refuses to rest on its laurels.
What also interests me in his journey is his social commitment. In 2005, he financed the construction of a school in Yi District, Hebei Province. Far from the image of the artist locked in his ivory tower, Li understands that artistic creation only makes sense if it is part of a broader project of social transformation. This ethical dimension of his work echoes what Deleuze called an “ethics of immanence,” where action is judged not according to transcendent principles but according to its capacity to increase our power to act in the world.
What makes Li Xuegong’s work so singular and so precious is its ability to create a space of thought where tradition and innovation, East and West, materiality and spirituality are no longer oppositions but polarities in constant dialogue. His work reminds us that great works of art are always bridges between seemingly separate worlds.
So, the next time you venture into an exhibition of contemporary Chinese art, do not be content with those eye-catching installations that clumsily mimic Western art. Look instead for works that, like those of Li Xuegong, have the courage of their complexity, their cultural roots, and their singular vision. True art has never been a matter of ease, but of inner necessity and intellectual rigor. And if you do not understand immediately, so much the better! As Paik Nam June so rightly said: “Understanding is the worst form of misunderstanding” [11]. Li’s art deserves better than our hasty understanding; it deserves our patient attention and our sensitive engagement.
- Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F., A Thousand Plateaus, Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris, 1980.
- Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F., What is Philosophy?, Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris, 1991.
- Wang Wei, cited in “Collection of Critiques on Li Xuegong by Art Critics”, 2013.
- Ando, T., The Colours of Light, Phaidon Press, London, 1996.
- Sun Ke, cited in “Collection of Critiques on Li Xuegong by Art Critics”, 2013.
- Ando, T., Conversations with Students, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2012.
- Nie Xiaoyang, “Li Xuegong: True Feeling, True Nature, True Talent”, 2023.
- Ando, T., Light and Architecture, The Japan Architect, Tokyo, 1993.
- Tang Shihe, cited in “Collection of Critiques on Li Xuegong by Art Critics”, 2013.
- Deleuze, G., Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, Éditions de la Différence, Paris, 1981.
- Nam June Paik, From the Horse to Christo and Other Writings, Éditions Lebeer Hossmann, Brussels, 1993.
