BRATTLEBORO — “Liu Bolin: The Invisible Man,” an exhibition at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC), includes popular camouflage photographs from Bolin's celebrated series, “Hiding in the City,” and his subsequent “Hiding in New York.”
To create these photographs, Bolin poses for hours in a landscape while his assistants paint him to create a camouflage, blending him into his surroundings.
“My intention was not to disappear in the environment but instead to let the environment take possession of me,” he says.
Liu Bolin is the featured artist of the new exhibit at BMAC on display until June 23, 2013. “Hot Pot: A Taste of Contemporary Chinese Art” showcases more than 100 works by more than 30 contemporary Chinese artists, and occupies all six of the museum's galleries and the Sculpture Garden as it offers visitors a rich opportunity to explore contemporary Chinese artistic expression.
Involving the viewer
As a way to continue the discussion found in Bolin's photographs, BMAC is presenting also until June 25 an exhibition entitled “Your Space: Camouflage.”
As BMAC Education Curator Susan Calabria writes, “Liu Bolin's photographs inspired this exhibit about camouflage in nature. Large, painted wall panels present different habitats. Visitors choose from an array of animal, insect, reptile, and fish stencils to create a creature to place on one of the panels. Here we learn that there are different kinds of camouflage, and that both predators and prey rely on blending in to thrive. Additional educational materials for all ages explore camouflage in depth.”
A global stage for a quiet idea
Liu Bolin was born in China's Shandong province in 1973. Since his first solo shows in Beijing in 1998, Bolin has received international recognition. His distinctive photographs and sculptures have been shown at the major contemporary photography festival, Les Rencontres d'Arles.
He had solo shows at Dashanzi Art Zone in Beijing (2007), Galerie Bertin-Toublanc in Paris (2007), Eli Klein Fine Art in New York (2008), Galerie Paris-Beijing in Paris and Brussels (2013), Boxart Gallery in Verona (2008), and Forma Foundation for Photography in Milan (2010).
“I've liked drawing since I was a boy,” says Bolin. “I drew small figures on my textbooks in primary school. I began studying art in middle school in 1985. I graduated from Shandong University of Arts in 1995. In 2001, I graduated with my MFA in sculpture from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Although art is considered an impractical career, as it is unreliable in many ways, I persevered and followed my dreams of pursuing artistic studies. I did all of this because I truly love art.”
Bolin belongs to the generation that came of age in the early 1990s, when China emerged from the Cultural Revolution and was beginning to enjoy rapid economic growth and relative political stability.
BMAC Chief Curator Mara Williams explains, “The contemporary art movement emerged in China in 1976, but it took nearly two decades for work to be exhibited internationally. I first encountered contemporary Chinese art in 1994 at the Marlborough Gallery in London. At the time, I was struck by how Socialist Realism, the dominant style for more than four decades in both the Soviet Union and China, was being co-opted by artists.
“The work had the 'look' of officially sanctioned art, but its imagery was either slyly critical of, or a comic riff on, Central Committee policies and sensibilities. Since then, Chinese art has become a huge segment of the international art market - unsurprising, given the reemergence of China on the world economic stage.”
Bolin considers himself an artist with a strong national identity.
“Yes, I am a Chinese artist,” he explains. “In China, if you choose to be an artist, you have chosen a lifetime of pain and loneliness. So I have to have a strong mind to work as I do.”
As Bolin muses on the social aspect of his work as a Chinese artist, he adds, “Because the environment where I live is filled with political elements, it makes my work increasingly political. In one aspect, my works record the history of the development of Chinese society. Concern about the situation of Chinese reality is one important theme of my works. I am trying to ask, 'How does our society develop? What are the problems in our society? Where is our direction leading?'
“Of course, many speak about my work from a political perspective, which is one aspect of my message for sure. But I also want to emphasize and to draw people's attention to the relationship between the grand scale of cultural development and the role of a single individual in society.”
'The performance of myself...'
Bolin would perhaps rather see his work in sociological rather than political terms. “I have been recognized as “The Invisible Man” while performing in America, Europe, and China,” he says. “When I work in different locations, I continue to explore the individual self through the eyes of each different culture, using themes and situations that characterize the people of that location.
“My current work concerns the performance of myself in a world of anxiety. It describes our helplessness as individuals.
“I'd like Vermonters to try and understand the conceptual aspect behind my work. I'm trying to deliver a message about the relationship of human beings to their environment. 'Environment' here can mean social, cultural, ecological, and so on. An individual today is more likely to be controlled by or even merged into their environment.”
Speaking of his camouflage photographs, Bolin adds, “In fact, there is not much in the way of ornamental value for me to express myself by 'fooling the eye.'”
This is not art for art's sake, but rather art with a message.
Bolin continues, “I choose to camouflage my body into the environment as a way of forcing the viewer to pay attention to the background's social property, and the meaning of my body disappeared in this environment as an individual.”
He says, “I just try my best to paint myself into the background. People are generally curious about my technique.”
But he would rather viewers focused less on craft than on what his photographs suggest.
“As they learn more about my work, they generally begin to understand my central themes,” he says.
But sometimes those themes fail to come across to his viewers, especially in his homeland.
“It is difficult to express my opinions through the photographs to a Chinese audience,” he says. “My ideas aren't taken very seriously beyond appreciation for my originality, creativity and technique. The message is often lost in China.”
Nonetheless, Bolin feels confident that his photographs are “well appreciated by viewers who sincerely like his work.”