Liu Xia

Beijing, 1959
She lives and works in Berlin

Liu Xia is a Chinese poet, painter, and photographer, as well as a prominent figure in her country's avant-garde art scene. In the 1980s, while working as a civil servant in Beijing, she became involved in the modern literary movement and met the intellectual and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, her future husband. Although she always stated that she had no interest in direct political involvement, her life became inextricably bound up with her spouse's battles; in 1996, she married him while he was detained in a re-education through labor camp following the Tiananmen Square protests. Her artistic output—characterized by intense poetry and famous photographic series (such as her shots of "ugly babies" reflecting human suffering)—faced severe censorship in China starting in 1989. When Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, the Chinese government placed her under a strict and illegal regime of house arrest, isolating her from the outside world for nearly a decade. In July 2018, one year after her husband died in state custody, she was finally allowed to leave China. Today, she lives and works in Berlin, continuing her artistic and poetic exploration focused on themes of isolation, memory, and freedom of expression.

SHOWS (SELECTION)
2020
Liu Xia: Photography, Galerie im Tempelhof Museum, Berlin

2015
Liu Xia – A photographer from China, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin
The Silent Strength of Liu Xia, Galleria Raffaella De Chirico, Turin

2014
The Silent Strength of Liu Xia, DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague

2013
The Silent Strength of Liu Xia, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg

2012
The Silent Strength of Liu Xia, Italian Academy at Columbia University, New York
The Silent Strength of Liu Xia, HK Arts Centre, Hong Kong

2011
The Silent Strength of Liu Xia, Musée Landowski, Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris