Elevator

Elevator

2007
Artist
Li Dafang, Chinese, 1971-
Born: Shenyang, China
Work Locations: Beijing, China
Country
China
Object
painting
Medium
Oil paint on canvas
Accession Number
2015.616
Credit Line
Gift from Vicki and Kent Logan to the Collection of the Denver Art Museum

Li Dafang
Elevator, 2007
Oil paint on canvas
Gift from Vicki and Kent Logan to the Collection of the Denver Art Museum, 2015.616
© Li Dafang

Dimensions
height: 79 in, 200.6600 cm; width: 118 1/4 in, 300.3550 cm; depth: 2 in, 5.0800 cm
Department
Modern and Contemporary Art
Collection
Modern and Contemporary Art

With photo-realist precision, Li depicts an apparently desolate farmland scene. He is interested in the unique northern Chinese landscape where the sudden shift to a market economy in the 1970s left an eerie industrial presence on the rural setting; an elevator shaft freely extends vertically from the right side of the corn field, suggesting an abandoned industrial building project. A stack of cardboard boxes to the left mirrors the verticality of the elevator, reaching upwards towards the clear blue sky. A man with his back to the viewer kneels in the foreground. Li utilizes his story telling skills and relies on tensions between reality and fiction to invite the viewer to explore the theatrical narrative taking place. 

Li was born in 1971 in Shenyang, China and  currently lives and works in Beijing.

© Li Dafang

Exhibition History
  • "Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection"-San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, July 10, 2008 - October 5, 2008