Which is Earth? No. 7

During the 1950s, as art in Taiwan underwent a series of unique developments, several young artists looked westward in their search for new ideas. One such artist is Liu Guosong. Perhaps best known for applying ink in innovative ways that created unconventional abstractions, Liu also manipulated paper by various means—tearing, collaging, brushing ink onto both sides, and pulling fibers off the surface. In 1969 Liu embarked on a new artistic phase. Influenced by photographs of the Earth and the moon sent back from the Apollo 7 mission, he began to incorporate circles and spheres into his already abstract compositions. The Which is Earth? series was created in the first year of Liu’s “space painting” period (1969–1972). During this period he created some three hundred works in virtually the same style, the only variations being the choice of colors and the quantity and size of the circles.

Liu Guosong was born in Shandong, a northeastern province in China, in 1932. Arriving in Taipei in 1949, he took up formal art study at Normal University and became interested in Western art. After graduatiing he founded the modern art association the Fifth Moon Group (1956) and began exhibiting his work around the world.