Talk | Dialogues Between Concrete and Clay

February 6, 2026 - The Liu Shiming Art Foundation shares highlights from a recent gallery talk titled Dialogues Between Concrete and Clay, presented by Richard Siggillino, Gallery Director of Mason Gross Galleries. The talk took place on the evening of February 5 at the Florio Auditorium, Rutgers University.

Richard Siggillino first began working with the Foundation in 2023 through the exhibition Life Gives Beauty Form. During that collaboration, he developed a strong interest in Liu Shiming’s sculptural practice and in the social history reflected in the work. He focused on how Liu’s sculptures relate to modern Chinese history and to the transformation of cities and daily life in the twentieth century. This interest led Richard to begin longer term research connected to Liu Shiming’s life and artistic context.

In the summer of 2024, Richard traveled to China for an extended research trip. During this visit, he met with many of Liu Shiming’s former colleagues and friends. He reviewed a large number of sculptures, sketches, handwritten notes, and historical news archives. Through this research, he became deeply engaged with the period after China’s economic reforms and with the scale of urban change during that time. He observed that many of Liu Shiming’s sculptures reflect changes in living environments. These works often move from scenes of traditional hutong life to images of apartment buildings and dense residential blocks. Richard noted that Liu repeatedly returned to questions about how shifts in housing affected social bonds and everyday relationships among urban residents.

The February 5 talk at Rutgers University focused on these themes of urban change, public space, and sculpture. Richard was joined by Chat Travieso, an architect and educator at Rutgers, and Mi Shih, a Rutgers professor whose work centers on urban planning and policy. The conversation also included Maëlle Ebelle, Gallery Director of the Liu Shiming Art Foundation. Together, the speakers discussed Liu Shiming’s work from the perspectives of art practice, architecture, and urban studies. They examined how sculpture can record social change and how cities shape human experience over time.

This talk marked a clear stage in Richard Siggillino’s research journey. It served as a public sharing of findings from his research trip in China and as a moment to organize ideas developed through fieldwork, interviews, and archival study. The Foundation will continue to support research that encourages cultural exchange, revisits historical experience, and brings scholars and researchers into dialogue with Liu Shiming’s work and with the social history connected to it.