Liu Bolin

Liu Bolin is a chameleon. He covers himself with acrylic paints, blending in seamlessly with the landscape surrounding him and photographs the finished product. In his body of work called Hiding in the City, he has disappeared in many different kinds of places around the world--from politically fraught areas in China to grocery stores, toy stores and more. Hiding becomes a strategy of visibility, a fight against censorship waged by a man who came of age in the China of the nineties, under the shadows of the Cultural Revolution. His work protests specific political acts and offers commentary on our consumer culture. Through his unforgettable art, Liu Bolin highlights what is present, without creating any original forms or artifacts, but all the same powerfully revealing reality to the onlooker.