The Exhibition

The Exhibition is a quarterly artist book series in limited editions that focus exclusively on New York–based gay artists.

Each edition of The Exhibition includes ten 11”-by-17” photographs of a particular artist, one 22”-by-33” poster of the artist’s work, and up to ten facsimile reproductions of his notes and sketches printed on a variety of paper stocks.

The Exhibition was founded by Yichi Liu, a New York-based designer and artist who created the series to explore the psychosexual relationship between artists and their audience. As Liu, who also photographs each subject, puts it, “The Exhibition is not only for art lovers, it’s for artist lovers.” 

Liu’s photos, shot in the studio and/or apartment of each featured artist, offer an intimate, and often erotic, glimpse of the artist’s working process and other more quotidian activities. Mining the charged space between Liu’s (and our) voyeurism and each artist’s exhibitionism, they call to mind the work of artists such as Jürgen Teller, Terry Richardson, and Wolfgang Tillmans. But The Exhibition’s journey into the world of each subject doesn’t end with the photographs: Samples from the artists’ diaries, journals, and sketchbooks, as well as a large-scale poster-sized reproduction of their artworks, affords viewers the opportunity to go even deeper into the world of these artists. 

Influenced by publications such as Butt, Pinups, Index and Esopus, The Exhibition allows viewers to immerse themselves in both the inner and outer lives of gay artists on an intimate scale. “Desire and curiosity,” Liu relates, “are the foundations of art and humanity.”