I came across Liu Jianhua’s work at The Armory Show in New York City in 2007.  At the time he was sculpting headless women in traditional Chinese dresses splayed over fine China.  Like Linnea Quigley’s character in Night of the Living Dead, I like this, when people are kind of morbid and funny.

His new exhibition departs from working with ceramics but has the same sentimentality. He’s recreated the Shanghai cityscape using only poker chips and dice. Like some Macaunese casino mogul’s precocious eight-year old son building a diorama for the science fair as a study of altitudes, it’s pretty fuckin’ awesome.

xx dg