Beili Liu: Mend | Conversation and Book Signing

Join us for an intimate conversation between artist Beili Liu and renowned curator Annette DiMeo Carlozzi as they discuss the artist’s career and recent publication, Beili Liu: Mend. This is the first monograph that chronicles over 20 years of Liu’s artistic exploration. 

Published by Art League Houston in celebration of Liu’s recognition as the 2024 Texas Artist of the Year, it includes essays by Eddie Chambers, Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, Bridget Bray, Katie Pfohl, Kay Whitney, and Benjamin Hickey. The book was designed by Isobel Chiang of Small Edition in NYC and printed in Barcelona.

A limited number of books will be available for purchase during a book signing following the conversation. To preview the book or to order your copy today, visit smalleditions.nyc/mend.

This event is part of a series of conversations at Women & Their Work with artists about their careers and the recent publication of books featuring their work. This series includes Beverly Penn, Beili Liu, and Scherezade García.

About the Artist

Beili Liu is a visual artist who creates material-and-process-driven, site-responsive installations and performances. Liu’s current research focuses on environmental concerns and the urgency of the climate crisis on a planetary scale. Working with commonplace materials and elements such as thread, needle, scissors, feather, salt, wax, and cement, Liu manipulates their intrinsic qualities to extrapolate complex cultural and environmental narratives.

Women & Their Work presented Beili Liu’s The Mending Project in 2011. Consisting of 1,500 pairs of Chinese iron scissors suspended from the ceiling, pointing downwards, forming a menacing dark cloud, the artist sat beneath them in a performance. Viewers were invited to cut off small pieces of white cloth hung near the entrance of the gallery space and pass them to Liu as she sewed them together. The project alluded to looming aggression and uncertainty, balanced and softened by the silent, simple action of mending.

In 2013, Liu presented THIRST in collaboration with W&TW, architects Emily Little and Norma Yancy, and landscape architect Cassie Bergstrom. This site-specific installation featured a 38-foot tall drought-killed tree anchored in the center of the Lady Bird Lake in Austin. This large-scale public art project memorialized the loss of the over 300 million trees that died in Texas droughts between 2011-2013, and acknowledged the devastating impact of climate change.

Learn more about the artist at beililiu.com. 

About the Curator

A champion of local artist communities who stays abreast of international developments, Annette DiMeo Carlozzi has a keen eye for emerging talent and a steadfast commitment to looking beyond labels. Best known in Austin as the founding modern and contemporary curator at the Blanton and as co-leader of The Contemporary’s Crit Group, Carlozzi has built an expansive curatorial practice creating seminal exhibitions, producing important commissions, and acquiring major works by a wide range of contemporary artists. After training at the Walker Art Center and serving as the first professional curator at Laguna Gloria Art Museum (now The Contemporary Austin), she served as Director of the Aspen Art Museum, Executive Director of the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, and Visual Arts Producer for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. 

Named to the Austin Arts Hall of Fame in 2013, Carlozzi is now an independent curator and recently contributed her essay, Formation, in Beili Liu: Mend, exploring Liu’s early career and formative years.

This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP below.