Toronto, Canada
An Te Liu (born 1967 in Taiwan) lives and works in Toronto and is one of Canada’s most noted artists of the moment. Liu's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Ursula Blickle Stiftung, EVA Ireland, the Venice Biennale of Architecture, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Liu has been artist in residence at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, which published the monograph, An Te Liu : Matter in 2009. More recently, the catalog An Te Liu : MONO NO MA was published by the Gardiner Museum in conjunction with his solo exhibition there.
As the representative artist for Canada in the 2014 Shanghai International Arts Festival, Liu has transformed discarded Styrofoam packing from consumer goods into ceramic and bronze sculptures that evoke a multiplicity of references. Using remnants of the contemporary world, Liu conjures forms recalling iconic works of both the ancient and modern periods. While each sculpture bears the imprint of an object in use today, the ambiguity of their origin invites reflection upon our relationship to things, both utilitarian and artistic, old and new. As such, the sculptural works of Wu Zhi Zhi Wu stand like fossils of an evolving, unconscious present.
Liu's works are included in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and The Art Institute of Chicago. Upcoming exhibitions include the Kunsthalle Vienna, the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, ART LABOR Gallery in Shanghai, and the 2014 Biennial of the National Gallery of Canada.
1967 in Taiwan
Master of Architecture, Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), Los Angeles
Honours B.A., Fine Art History, Renaissance Studies, Victoria College, University of Toronto
2017
Transmission, Anat Ebgi Gallery
2016
An Te Liu—Naine Blanche, Musée d’art de Joliette
2015
An Te Liu—Des bribes et des morceaux, Galerie Division, Montréal
An Te Liu—Solid States, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA) at Toronto Sculpture Garden
2014
In Absentia, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge; Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery; Art Gallery of Grande Prairie
The Knowing Nothing of the Thing, ART LABOR Gallery, Shanghai
2013
Mono No Ma, Gardiner Museum, Toronto
Recodings, Bulthaup, Toronto
2012
BLAST, Allen Lambert Galleria, Brookfield Place, Toronto
2011
Lost in Transaction, No. 9 Contemporary Art, Pearson International Airport Toronto
BLAST, Michael Klein Gallery (MKG127), Toronto
2009
Pook X Pookie, SCI-Arc Gallery, Los Angeles
2008
Matter, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin
Style and Epoch, Michael Klein Gallery (MKG127), Toronto
2007
Ether, The News at Five, Toronto International Art Fair
2004
Ether, Mercer Union, Toronto
Tackiness and Anti-Power, Artists Space, New York
2001
Condition, Henry Urbach Gallery, New York
2000
Pathology, Contemporary Art Gallery (CAG), Vancouver
2017
The Preservationists, Duddell's, Hong Kong
And the Sky is Grey, Art Toronto
Chicago Architecture Biennial—Make New History, Chicago
Imago Mundi—Great and North, Palazzo Loredan, Venice (cat.)
Sticky Fingers, Arsenal Contemporary, New York
Jeu et Diversion, Art Souterrain, Montréal
Aéroports / Ville Monde, La Gaïte Lyrique, Paris
2016
The Blur in Between, Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA), Edmonton
Terminal P, La Panacée, Montpellier
Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth, Four Six One Nine, Los Angeles
2015
Contrastes, Arsenal, Montréal
Stories Told, O’Born Contemporary, Toronto
2014
Shine a Light: 2014 Canadian Biennial, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Suburbia—A Model Life, Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA), Edmonton
The Brancusi Effect - The Archival Impulse, Kunsthalle, Vienna
2014 Canadian Biennial, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Casting the Negative, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
2013
To Be Small or To Have Presents, Stichtung SEA Foundation, Tilburg
Airport Landscape, Harvard GSD, Cambridge MA
2012
Museum for the End of the World, Nuit Blanche 2012, Toronto
Collection Tedeschi, Parisian Laundry, Montréal
Local Color, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose
Full Circle, WORKShop, Toronto
2011
PARAdesign, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco
Hyper Spaces, Oakville Galleries, Oakville
The More Things Change, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco
Place, Toronto International Art Fair, Toronto
2010
Empire of Dreams, Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art (MOCCA), Toronto
Out of Sight, Nuit Blanche, Toronto
Everything Must Go, Toronto International Art Fair, Toronto
Design Domestic, Design Exchange, Toronto
2009
The Leona Drive Project, Willowdale
eva International Biennial of Visual Art 2009, Limerick
Fremtidens arkitektur er grøn!, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen
Mouth of Lenin, Exhibition 211, New York
Transclimatic, Sydney Customs House, Sydney
2008
11th Venice Biennale - Out There: Architecture Beyond Building, Venice
Hier ist Amerika oder Nirgends, Galerie Ben Kaufmann / Art Berlin Contemporary, Berlin
246 and Counting, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco
Figuration in Contemporary Design, The Art Institute of Chicago
2007
Modelle für Morgen: Köln, European Kunsthalle, Cologne
Pattern Theory, Michael Klein Gallery (MKG127), Toronto
Paradox Practice: Architecture in the Wake of Conceptualism, UCI Art Gallery, Irvine
Happy Birthday, Michael Klein Gallery (MKG127), Toronto
2006
Street, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam
Sense of the City, Centre Canadien d’Architecture (CCA), Montréal
2005
Airborne, Henry Urbach Gallery, New York
Therefore Beautiful, Ursula Blickle Stiftung, Kraichtal
Re Building The World, Art Gallery of Edmonton
2004
Ziploc, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph
A.C., Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York
Domestic Odyssey, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose
2003
mosaiCanada: Sign and Sound, Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), Seoul
Dead Malls, Urban Center Gallery at the Municipal Art Society, New York
Rethinking Photography IV: New Reduction as Expansion, Galerie Fotohof, Salzburg
Bauhauswerk, weework, Toronto
2002
New Modulr, Blackwood Gallery, Toronto and The Art Gallery of Calgary
Housebroken, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
1999
Luster, Henry Urbach Gallery, New York
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
Art Institute of Chicago
San Jose Museum of Art
ASAP Archive, London and Berlin
Toronto Dominion Bank Collection
Dickinson Wright Collection, TorontoNational Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Gardiner Museum, Toronto
Claridge Collection, Montréal
Tedeschi Collection, Montréal
Sobey Collection, Halifax
Canada Council for the Arts, Research/Creation Grant to Visual Artist
Ontario Arts Council, Established Visual Artist Grant
Toronto Arts Council, Grant to Visual Artist
DFAIT Canada, Exhibition Assistance Grant
Künsterlhaus Bethanian, Berlin
Ontario Arts Council, Toronto, Mid-Career Visual Artist Grant
Canada Council for the Arts, Creation Grant to Visual Artist
Canada Council for the Arts , Visual Arts Creation Grant (mid-Career 'B')
Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Research Grant
Consulate General of Canada, New York, Exhibition Assistance Grant
Canada Council for the Arts, International Residency to Visual Artist
