Liu Wei (b. 1972) is fluent in a multiplicity of mediums, with minimal stylistic constancy beyond his occasional embrace of the architectural and geometric.His practice is uniquely varied in video, installation, drawing, sculpture, and painting. As commented by Lise Movius posted on Art in America, "Rather Liu perceives the artist’s function as a responsibility of unmitigated, uncensored expression, tied to neither ideology nor form. Throughout Liu’s work lies an engagement with peripheral identity in the context of wider culture; his works often describe a sentiment of excess, corruption, and aggression reflective of cultural anxiety." Today Art Museum is pleased to present his solo show--Myriad Beings from Sept. 3rd to 10th.
by Guo Xiaoyan
This exhibition is the second time Liu Wei, a young and creative artist, has presented one of his important programs he has been working on during the past two years. He makes move via “designing” and “rebuilding” the “installation” which involves certain reference and consciousness, and due to answer the question the artist raised.
The work we call “exhibiting” is the process where artists reflect on, conclude and art to current issues, while they can see and asses their growth and engagement in introspection as artists. Their thoughts and works are not only symbolic references to the real world, but also their cognition of the current situation and circumstances. Thus, art becomes the artists’ weapon to disintegrate and “interfere” with those established values and popular ideas which affect our judgment and actions. So the question comes up how can the artists estimate and distinguish the complexity, abstruseness and zeitgeist of the reality with their sensibility, knowledge and individual strength at a time when contemporary art falls into a predicament both in terms of ideas and actions?
The idea of “Myriad Beings” Liu Wei proposes and created aims to embody the “content” of Myriad Beings with the ability of self-criticism and self-deconstruction. Liu reconstructs plants, wood, metal and other” materials” to give them new concepts, and presents his complicated, intricate experience and thoughts on practical and artistic problems through the images and scenes he creates.
How could artistic creation stimulate artists to think and act? Is “exhibiting” the final place of creation, or an indefinite starting point for further thoughts and actions? These are also questions artists are facing now.
Image Courtesy of the artist and Today Art Museum.
Title: Myriad Beings——Liu Wei Solo Show
Organizer: Today Art Museum
Duration: September 3-10 10:00am-17:00pm
Venue: 2nd floor exhibition hall of building 1
ADD:No.32 Baiziwan Road,Chaoyang District,Beijing,100022
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