HENNESSY X LIU WEI

FEATURE STORY
ARTIST
COLLABORATION
DESIGN
STORIES

FEATURE STORY

HENNESSY X LIU WEI

Hennessy honours the Lunar New Year 2021 by unveiling a collaboration with contemporary artist: Liu Wei.

ARTIST

A joyful artist

Liu Wai belonged to a generation of artists known as the Post-Sensibility group. Liu has become a singular presence on the global art stage for works spanning various media including large-scale installations, video, drawing, painting, digital design, and sculpture, as well as for his use of unconventional materials and shapes."I chose vivid colors and an organic character to express hope for this new spring, for positive change and a beautiful future."

His philosophy

"I’m not superstitious personally, but the Chinese consider the Ox an auspicious year. Because of the pandemic, we are coming out of a very unusual year, and it changed a lot of things for me, like how I think, work and the way I look at art and the world around me. I believe one must remain hopeful when looking to the future: each year brings change and new possibilities, even in times of crisis, as we have recently experienced. Focusing on new creativity gives me lots of hope for the future."

His inspiration

"All of my inspiration comes from real life. I’m always looking at the world with new eyes and asking what art is exactly at a given point in space and time. Everything depends on one’s approach to reality and how you read things.
Rather than just giving my own art a meaning – which I find too frontal – I prefer emotions."

COLLABORATION

HENNESSY X LIU WEI

LIU WEI IN COGNAC

"I was really touched by their long history and the technique of assemblage, or mixing. Hennessy is sort of a culture unto itself. When you see all the old barrels, you realize how much time and patience it requires to perfect a craft, from making a barrel to blending cognac. It’s fascinating. It has nothing to do with the modern world, where we all work like machines."

For Hennessy, Liu Wei conceived “SPRING” as a sensorial invitation to experience the season of rebirth through an abstract artwork of almost psychedelic joy. A visual echo to the depth of Hennessy cognacs, the painting appears freestyle and organic; its vibrant shades of fuchsia, blue, green and yellow buoy the spirit. The emotional resonance of the piece, which was designed to remain open to individual interpretation, is rooted in a constant quest for what the Beijing-based artist calls “a certain kind of beauty within a world of possibility. That quest mirrors the time-honored savoir-faire Hennessy Master Blenders draw upon to craft exceptional cognacs, generation after generation.