Liu Xiaodong was born in Jincheng, Liaoning, China in 1963.

Now he lives and works in Beijing. His solo exhibitions mainly include Liu Xiaodong: Migrazioni in the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy in 2016; Slow Homecoming in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf in Germany in 2018; Borders in the Dallas Museum of Art in Texas, US in 2021. His group exhibitions include Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, US in 2017, and Datumsoria in ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany in the same year. His paintings have been collected by National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), etc.