The painter Liu Xiaodong is one of the most well-known representatives internationally of a generation of Chinese artists who grew up in a new society marked by rapid and frequent shifts in perspective. He uses the language of Social Realism and conventional documentary media to lend a voice to daily life against the background of radical change. Earthquakes, changes in landscape and human-made ecological disasters as well as social formation based on economic transformation: all this has been captured by Liu Xiaodong. He confronts the developments by visiting the places concerned and attempting to capture the significance of events in visual form.

In this work, the artist has chosen Eisenerz in Upper Styria, Austria (NW of Graz), where he lived and worked for a month with a team of assistants and camera operators. The situation with the centuries-old industrial and cultural landscape bears a striking resemblance with conditions in China. Eisenerz, exposed to an enormous process of change, is suddenly transformed into a global model. The degeneration caused by structural shifts and the accompanying social transformation have created clearly visible problems; attempts to overcome them are varied. As a painter, Liu does not tackle events and historical developments in a combative way, rather as a chronicler. He attempts to express the transition from one form of society to the other through pictures.

The work was exhibited for the fist time in Liu Xiaodong's 2012 exhibition titled ‘The Process of Painting’ at the Kunsthaus Graz, curated by Guenther Holler-Schuster. Xiaodong worked in situ in the mining town Eisenerz in Upper Styria. The composition for this painting is inspired by a Tendler painting titled Lighting and Miners' Parade in Eisenerz. The fire Ziaodong includes in the paitning is a surrealist element and an allegory for disaster and change.