Once again, Stephen Heller — who writes the Visuals column for the New York Times Book Review and The Daily Heller blog for Print Magazine, — gives us shock-and-awe images. This time, he acquaints us with Liu Bolin, a 36-year-old performance artist from Beijing, whose art form is what Heller calls “camo art.” Check this out:
Can you find Liu Bolin??
Liu, known as the “Invisible Man,” steps into his images… literally. He has been known to spend upwards of 10 hours painting his body to nearly perfectly blend into his surroundings, turning an eventual photograph of him into a living, breathing trompe l’oeil image. In the photograph below, he is barely visible blending into an enormous American flag.
Performance artist Liu hiding in plain sight.
The YU Gallery in Paris has a month-long, one-man exhibition of Liu’s photographs which will close on October 31st. Nine large images from the YU Gallery exhibition can be viewed here on the website of the Herald Sun, a Melbourne, Australia newspaper.
When asked why he does this, Liu explains that blending into his surroundings communicates social invisibility. “I experienced the dark side of society, without social relations, and had a feeling that no one cared about me, I felt myself unnecessary in this world, ” Liu told the London Telegraph. Liu considers his work a form of protest against the Chinese government, which he said, closed his art studio in 2005. This photo, one of his most political, is amazing (see right):
Click here to view a YouTube video of Liu being painted.
