"Li Songsong ( previously) has long centered his practice around translating archival imagery, whether it be a portrait printed in a newspaper or still from a film. The Chinese artist is broadly interested in the ways that memories morph over time and how, when we're reflecting on a moment well in the past, our clarity over the particulars can be hazy."
"Wide, impasto layers of oil paint cloak the large-scale canvas, creating a cacophony of color and texture that seems to swell upward while simultaneously pulling downward. The clustered ridges of paint, for example, might evoke bodies huddled together in mass, their backs to the viewer as they move toward an unknown destination. For Li, these brushstrokes, while abstract, do retain a sense of action and autonomy, and he describes them as "agentive and idiosyncratic" even as they're covered again and again."
Li Songsong centers his practice on translating archival imagery and exploring how memories morph and lose clarity over time. The History Painting series shifts from specific source images to abstraction, employing wide impasto oil layers on large canvases that create thick, swelling textures arranged in a top-down grid of repeated marks. The clustered ridges of paint suggest figurative associations—bodies moving together—while maintaining brushstrokes' action and autonomy. Pace Gallery states that the series reflects Li's relationship to the medium rather than a particular visual source. History Painting is on view through December 20 in New York.
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