Liu Bolin Red No 1 , 2012

Name: Red No 1
Brand: Artsper
SKU: 233182
Price: 13977 EUR
Availability: InStock

$13,977

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Danysz Gallery

Paris, France

Artsper seller since 2014
21 orders finalized

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Imagine it at home

simulator

About the work

Medium

Photography : inkjet
Dimensions cm | inch

90 x 120 cm 35.4 x 47.2 inch
Support

Photography on Fine art paper
Framing

Not framed
Type

Numbered and limited to 8 copies
2 remaining copies
Authenticity

Work sold with an invoice from the gallery
and a certificate of authenticity
Signature

Signed artwork
About the artwork

Artwork sold in perfect condition

"I use a sniper’s technique," said Liu Bolin in a TED talk in 2013, commenting on his famous series Invisible Man, these photo-performances where the Chinese artist uses camouflage to blend into the landscape in his photographs. A chameleon artist, through his own dissimulation Liu Bolin creates a tension in the image.

The background in his photographs, whether it be a supermarket shelf or an iconic tourist spot, often appears as predatory. "Some would say that I disappear into the landscape," he says. “Personally, I would say that it is the environment that swallows me up."

Reenacted so often, in so many places on the planet, his work is penetrated with the idea that there are in this world countless ways to be swallowed, countless ways to be denied one’s individuality. It might be the city’s environment that shrinks you down to a shadow on the walls; it might be our consumer society, with its shopping malls, its mass tourism, its entertainment industry, that threatens to absorb you.

In parallel with his photography work, Liu Bolin continues to practice sculpture – the medium with which he started as an artist - and creates human figures made of electronic components, motherboards, USB cables. This sculpture work completes, and in one way illuminates, the Invisible Man series. It proceeds from the same vision of a humanity in jeopardy, and invites us to question whether our species isn’t perhaps on the path to being dissolved into the technological, economic and political structures of this contemporary age.

The question is asked with some insistence, but always in an open-handed, non-authoritarian way. Liu Bolin favors hushed tones and silent interventions. Literally and figuratively, he disappears into his creations. In his photo-performances, it is the viewer who needs to lay bare the meaning of the work, who needs to spot the outlines of his silhouette and reveal the human form. In the end, this perpetual disappearance is above all a pretext for putting Man back into the picture. An exhortation to make him reappear.
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Origin: China
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Movement: Optical illusions photographers

Collector’s Guide

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Artist

Liu Bolin

China Born in: 1973 Masterpieces

Movement: Optical illusions photographers

Liu Bolin is born in 1973 in China where he lives and works.

Despite his worldwide fame, it is the first time ever in Shanghai one can see the complete line of his work from the beginnings until the present days. Known for his “Invisible Man" photo-performance, Liu Bolin has through the years been working on different subsequent themes. Media as sculpture being one that can't be ignored, for they provide variation in his consistent research. Sculptures, as his photographs, show how the outside can blend with the inside and vice versa.

Liu Bolin's work requires meticulous planning and execution. It all lies in the perfection of the vision, whether it is an illusion or just a mirror surface. Known for his “Invisible Man" photo-performance, Liu Bolin has also through the years been working on different subsequent themes and media, as sculpture for instance. Liu Bolin uses the city around him as a backdrop, painting himself to blend in with a landscape in constant flux. By literally blending into the city, Liu creates a tension that challenges the viewer to question what is above and beneath the surface. For Liu, the most important element of his images is the background.

Each image requires rigorous planning and execution: as both artist and performer, Liu directs the photographer on how to compose each scene before entering the frame. Once situated, he puts on a monochromatic uniform, which he wears for all of his Invisible Man photographs and, with the help of an assistant and painter, is painted seamlessly into the scene. This process can sometimes take up to 10 hours with Liu having to stand perfectly still. Although the end result of Liu's process is the photograph, the tension between his body and the landscape is an important aspect to the process.