Liu Ding: Room of Boundlessness

In 2024, Magician Space introduced The Antechamber, a project space independent from the gallery, dedicated to cutting-edge projects. It serves as a platform for artists with visionary insight, intellectual depth, and creativity to engage in unrestricted experimentation.

The first project Room of Boundlessness is the latest work by Beijing-based conceptual artist Liu Ding. The word “boundlessness” is derived from the poem “Song of Leyou Park” by Tang-Dynasty poet Du Fu (712–70). This poem describes what he saw at the banquet, expressed his sorrows over his experiences, as well as his frustrations about the political climate and the society. The poem’s concluding verses, “Finished drinking, I have nowhere to go; I stand in a boundless vastness, chanting a poem to myself” encapsulate a complex array of implications. The term “boundlessness” both refers to the state of twilight, and also conveys a sense of uncertainty about the future, a concern for politics in the country, and a profound sense of history where the expanse of the world is embedded. 

The image of “being solitary in the room of boundlessness” has become an embodiment of the concern of literati for the reality. When confronted with the hustle and bustle of the world and the ups and downs of social changes, one retreats to his/her own space, not to isolate oneself from the rest of the world, but to maintain a consciousness of one’s position. It is about connecting the individual self to the fate of the society, so as to excavate possible pathways to voluntarily undertake one’s responsibilities for the reality. In this sense, “being solitary in the room of boundlessness” is a schematic demonstration of both helplessness and anticipation, a belief in the strength of independent spirit and culture, and an intellectual quality that dares to confront daunting realities with individual agency.

For this project, Liu Ding has brought together a collection of works and documents from renowned littérateurs and artists, to ceate the Room of Boundlessness. He believes that when we take such aspects as one’s heart, emotion, disposition, inherent nature, potential and ambition into consideration, we can obtain more precise and flexible insights to understand historical figures and events within their specific contexts. The Room of Boundlessness serves as a vessel, carefully constructed from a pastiche of fragmented experiences and lived feelings.

Professor Chen Pingyuan, a scholar of modern literary history, has written a calligraphic inscription, “being solitary in the room of boundlessness” for this project. Since the early 1990s, by “retreating” to the “academics,” Professor Chen has been at the forefront of a movement to revitalize the study of literature history and history of scholarship, emphasizing the importance of setting up rigorous “academic criteria,” and pushing for innovation and development in scholarly “production.”

This time, Liu Ding interweaves his personal collection with his own artworks, presenting a two-chapter installation. This project is like an extension of his private study room, residing temporarily in Magician Space’s Antechamber. Within this space, he first covers the entire walls with eight silver iron plates, transforming the space into an austere and metallic enclosure. Then in the second chapter, four of these plates are removed and repositioned, now slanting between their still-affixed counterparts. This reconfiguration partially obscures the remaining wall plates and, in one instance, even obstructs the viewer’s direct line of sight to a displayed work, shaping it into a scene of fragmentation and unease.

The group of works presented in chapter I consists of inner thoughts of people having been through varied life conditions and experiences in the contemporary society. They are symbols of depression, as well as “portraits” of people in despair. The second chapter features four works, all about the excruciating agony and helplessness wrought by wars past and present, as well as intricate emotions that linger in people’s hearts in the aftermath of war. Together, the two-part charts a thought-provocative topography of the unsettling historical moment we face today.