Only City. 2009
Woodcuts, posters, lightboxes

Liu Qingyuan, working in association with the YAH Lab collective, undertakes an ironic rechannelling of the ways the urban landscape is consumed, in the form of one of the pedestrian retail streets so common in China. Usually developed by the local authorities, these streets are intended to promote "commercial prosperity" and are packed with advertising and all possible forms of consumption. Twenty metres long, the Liu Qingyuan & Yah project comprises 60 lit-up signs based on wood engravings. Mischievously, the signs give no indication of what is for sale. Facing them are woodblock-printed silhouettes together with comic-strip bubbles waiting to be filled in by visitors: almost a mass entertainment readymade.