LI BINYUAN 厲檳源

The Long Farewell was conceived during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic – a period of profound personal and collective upheaval. Named after Raymond Chandler’s celebrated novel, the work confronts the inevitability of letting go: of cherished relationships, of certainties, of the world as it was. As in his action performances and video works, the artist turns to sculpture to give form to states of being that resist easy articulation. A group of life-sized figures and companion forms carved in white Carrara marble, The Long Farewell, renders vulnerability, companionship, and solitary wonder with a clarity and dignity that stand against the chaos from which it emerged.

Born in Yongzhou, Hunan Province, in 1985, Li Binyuan graduated from the Sculpture Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in 2011. His work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, and has been exhibited at MoMA PS1, where Land: Zhang Huan and Li Binyuan, 2018, placed his practice in a generational dialogue with a defining figure of Chinese performance. His work is also collected by M+, KADIST, and the White Rabbit Collection. In 2021, he received the Grand Prize of the Sovereign Asian Art Prize, and in 2025, the Song Art Museum in Beijing presented Becoming Li Binyuan, his most comprehensive survey to date.