Word: liu
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...Liu Xiaodong was too lost in his delicate brushstrokes - too deep in the trash heap beneath an East Naples underpass - to notice his visitors: a pair of helmetless (and humorless) teenagers, who had quietly rolled in on a moped as the star Chinese painter added touches of color to his latest en plein air work of social neo-realism...
...same stone-faced duo had shown up about an hour before sunset on each of the six days that Liu had been working on his unlikely rendering of Naples' notorious garbage. They said nothing and showed no interest in talking with the artist or any of his eight assistants, but stayed long enough to look everything and everyone over - and to be sure they were noticed. They were performing a ritual familiar in the troubled neighborhoods of southern Italy, scouting for local mob bosses and asserting control over the "territorio...
...News reports blamed the Camorra crime syndicate, government mismanagement, faraway profiteers and ingrained local apathy for the troubled coastal city's worst-ever waste-removal crisis. The broader implication was that the modern consumer lifestyle is a ticking environmental time bomb. Watching the drama unfold on TV in Beijing, Liu saw the makings of one of his blunt but beautiful site-specific works of social commentary...
...Liu has risen to the top of the contemporary art world - in April, he broke a record for a mainland Chinese painting when one of his works fetched $8.2 on auction. His subject matter deals invariably with the consequences of modernity, depicting the forgotten faces of peasants in the Tibetan desert, or families displaced by the rising waters of the massive Three Gorges damn project. He's also done portraits of prostitutes in Thailand, and high school students in Boston. Says Morgan Morris, the Rome-based curator of this latest project: "Every time there's something coming to a head...
...subtly exploring sensitive issues in a China still prone to squash dissent is one thing; painting on the streets of Naples requires a different kind of courage. "This is under control of the clan," says one local, nodding toward the mounds of illegally dumped trash being rendered iconic by Liu beneath the exit ramp of State Highway SS162. "It's the Sarno family: they say yes or no if this gets cleaned...