Liu Shiming
Linnéa Gad

The Liu Shiming Art Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition Breath is Everywhere, bringing together  the works of Liu Shiming and Linnéa Gad from November 12 to December 19, 2025. This exhibition  explores matter, gesture, and the living as vectors of memory, narrative, and transformation. It maps an  intuitive cartography of art, where volumes and forms respond to one another in a living rhythm. 

For Liu Shiming and Linnéa Gad, every material becomes a narrative instrument, revealing through  various media physical, symbolic, and expressive qualities. Traces and gestures are readable in volumes  and textures, transforming bronze, metal, clay, wood, or porcelain into metaphorical extensions of a  discourse oriented toward interconnectedness. 

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The singularity of this exhibition lies in the resonance between their practices. Despite differing aesthetics  and temporalities, Liu Shiming and Linnéa Gad share common concerns. Their works engage in dialogue  through matter and gesture: both explore life, nature, balance, and human impact. Linnéa Gad’s  sculptures extend Liu Shiming’s logic without replicating his style, highlighting principles of structure,  gesture, and narrative, and reinterpreting the presence of the living. This interaction transcends the visible  to unfold within intellectual intent, creating a true conversation between tradition and modernity. 

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This dialogue continues in their approach to form and the invisible. A porosity emerges between the two  practices, perceptible in the way the works respond to one another. Linnéa Gad’s sculptures explore the  same tensions as Liu Shiming’s: fragility and strength, observation and action. Figuration and abstraction  merge within the exhibition space, dissolving boundaries between their practices. 

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In a video interview made for the exhibition, Linnéa Gad notes that her attention was first drawn not to the  figures themselves but to Liu Shiming’s sensitivity in handling his subjects and materials. Rough finishes,  cracks, and fingerprints become markers of a shared sculptural approach, highlighting a lineage between  the two artists. 

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The activation of the works by the viewer is another point of convergence between their practices. The  works of Liu Shiming and Linnéa Gad engage the visitor’s attention, inviting them to perceive these  resonances and grasp their formal significance. Two works particularly illustrate this dialogue: Looking at  Each Other Through the Cage by Liu Shiming, in which a clay bird trapped in a metal cage is observed by  its mother, and Glowpress by Linnéa Gad, a blown glass piece seemingly striving to escape its steel  armor. In both works, confinement and distance resonate, and the viewer becomes the observer linking  the two practices. Figuration gradually dissolves into abstraction. 

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Thus, the reading of the works becomes both physical and transformative, placing the viewer at the  center of a space shaped by materiality. The conversation between the practices demonstrates how a  contemporary approach can extend tradition while preserving the symbolic and emotional potential of  sculpture. The interpretation of the works grows through observation: the materials speak, they breathe. 

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In conclusion, Breath is Everywhere reveals sculpture’s ability to create a network of correspondences,  where the works resonate beyond their mere presence. The exhibition illustrates the continuity between  traditional approach and material exploration, between body and form, memory and contemporaneity,  offering the viewer an experience that is both aesthetic and contemplative. 

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Maëlle Ebelle