Why don’t I hear more about undead beings coming back to warn people? It’s always zombies wanting to drag people down to join them in the grave, ghosts seeking vengeance, spirits trying to chase people out of their domains - but if you died horribly and were left rattling around some spooky mansion for eternity, wouldn’t you want to stop people from blundering into the same death you had?
You feel a cold breath on your neck as you get in the car. It won’t leave until you fasten your seatbelt. An unseen force catches your foot as you pass the fourth step every time you walk up the stairs. During a renovation, you find out the wood is rotten. You can never find a pack of cigarettes - even ones guests bring disappear from their pockets and are found weeks later on the lawn, empty. Your daughter is giggling and laughing at something unseen, chasing after it away from the cliffside on your family hike. You don’t know why, but you feel compelled to leave a spare hairband and some stickers on a picnic table as you leave the park. Tribute? A thank you? The items are gone by next time you visit, and you swear a happy child’s hum follows you home on the breeze.
…More preventative hauntings. It just makes sense.
character in a movie: Oh no, angry dog, please don’t bite me!
the dog: I’m at work! I’m doing so good at being at work! I’m barking because my handler gave the sign ‘bark’! I am going to get such a good grade in being a dog actor, which is completely possible to achieve, and normal to want! I am doing a great job! I am proud of myself for doing such a great job! I love this, because I’d make it physically impossible to get anything done if I wasn’t enjoying it! I’m barking!
Liu’s figurative paintings — inspired by shunga, Japanese erotic art popularized in the 17th century — are ruminations on her upbringing in a family where sex and nudity were taboo. When she first began to show these works, a dealer suggested she recut the canvases to eliminate the exaggerated genitals (the work in this article is a relatively tame example). “I can’t do that,” she said. “They were like, ‘Well, do you want to sell? Do you want to create this career?’ I found that so outrageous. [I was] being censored once again. As a child I was not allowed to ask questions but now I can’t even show …” she trails off. “I know it’s aggressive, maybe it’s not your taste, but that’s not the point of the piece.”
“Hanging on the wall of Liu’s studio are three large paintings of nudes. In one, two females crouch head-to-head as if sharing a kiss — or a secret. Get close enough to the canvas and you can see a window ornamented with a flower box; you realize that there is another painting underneath: The original works are paintings of old family photographs.”