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Interview: Serhat Cacekli | Photos: Galerie Paris-Bejing

Whether in our daily rush or in the dynamics of society or sometimes in our inner world… There is a chance that today’s people might get lost anywhere, anytime. Chinese artist Liu Bolin accomplishes to be everyone and no one at the same time; he gets lost in the streets, in the canals of Venice, in front of the beverage shelves at the supermarket, in front of the landmarks of Chinese revolution and we can only find him by asking the question “Why?” instead of “Where?”

You earned an M.F.A. in sculpture, yet your first major series was photographs and you also do paintings. What is behind your decisionof mediums? How did you begin making these series of photographs painting yourself with perfect camouflage to disappear into the background?

My major is sculpture in BA and Master. I was trained the realistic skill from the class for many years, however, it seems like that what I got is only that skill. When my studio was demolished, I found that realistic skill or the sculptural language could not do any help to create a work to communicate with the society and to express my true feeling, especially, my protest and indignation. Now I summarize that kind of situation is shortcut keys. That kind of situation touches my instinct for survival. I understood that the training is “nothing”, the will to express your life is everything. From that time, I try to use my act and my body to express my inner world. Actually, I think the most important thing of Art is that expresstion from the inner world of the artist, especially, the expression about the struggle in his life. Before I become an artist, I did a lot of jobs. Teaching children drawing, teaching at an art training class, and being assistant of other artist.

I lived in the bottom of the society. Those years, I feel that I’m redundant in the society. Actually, such kind of redundant feeling is the foundation of why I hiding my self into the background. Additionally, in the October of 2005, the Suojia Village International Art Camp was forced to be demolished. This is a shock for me. After that I create this Hiding in the City Series to express my protest.

I try to use this Hiding in the City Series to express my inner world out and to express my understanding of the world around me.

One can also appreciate your artworks from a technical perspective. Each time you have to pose for hours while around ten of your assistants painting your whole body. How does it feel to work with so many people? Do you also make other artistic collaborations?

I have 6 assistants. Some shoot, some paint, some do sculptures. I have constant assistant in China, but when I go abroad, my constant assistant is Zachary Bako. He is a photographer. As for the painting, the assistants will be elected from the local young artists.
If let me to find three words that could describe your feelings while being painted, they will be insistence, struggle, enjoyment. Insistence means the insistence of my art dream. Struggle means
I expressed gradually the struggle with my life through my work. I think that this is a basic feature of my work. Enjoyment means that in the process of pursuing my art dream, I enjoy the suffering and happiness a lot. Actually, standing there being painted is a painful process, several hours, you could not move, the body aches all over. However, I enjoy such process which is a sacrifice to the art and a striving for my art dream.

In your works, time is an important concept too. How do you incorporate performance art into your photographs?

Many people have asked me that is your artwork performance artwork, social sculpture, photography, or oil painting. Actually, I don’t know about it. Because in this process, I just want to use some skills to express my thought, however, I never fix any kind of skill. I use the realistic skill of the oil painting, use my body itself, and finally such kind of uncertain style or synthetical style become to be a feature of my work. It’s hard to give a label on my work. I’m happy for that.

During the process of becoming invisible, do you think anything? It should feel like meditating in some ways.

When I doing an art work, I will stand still and try my best to match up my assistants. Because even I move a little bit, it will become a quite problem for them to finish the work. In the meantime, this standing still is a test for my physical power. I always think about my struggle of my life. I use my artwork to express that struggle. I know I must make it. And the discomfort or the pain will inspire my will.

How do you choose the sites that you will be camouflaged into for your photographs?

When I choose the background, I always pay attention to the contradictions between the background and the development of human beings. In my works, there are two factors are combined, the disappearance of my body and the background. Therefore, the background plays a very important role and it does means a lot. In China, I will choose some backgrounds to record the changing of the mind of Chinese people and to record the problems arising from the changing of society. The backgrounds are always daily scene. You could easily find them when you take a walk on the street. However, people how live there could not find them which are just something under their nose, since they don’t care about them and they never think about them. I will. I will use my work to record them, the problems which are arising from the changing of the society. In my works, there are many other factors, like the colors, line patterns, and complexity of the background, which are the factors I need to consider either.

Till now, I always pay attention to several themes. However, as long as you have thought of the background, you could put it as the background and make an art work. In theory, the background could be everywhere you want, but you have to think about what does people care about, you have to arouse people’s attention.

In your ‘Hiding in the City’ series we often see you disappeared into sites replete with symbols of China’s Cultural Revolution, or suggestive of the immense changes in the country since the fall of Mao Zedong’s regime. Later you choose other sites around the world. What caused this change? Do your works still stand at the same point of view?

I start my Hiding In the City series from 2005. In this process, the point which I focus on changes several times. And such changes show a process that how I solve the questions in my heart. For example, the beginning of this series is a protest.

I want to express my feeling. Then I change the main topic to the people live in the city. Two man or two women appear in the works. It’s like to express my thought about friendship and love.
I start to do some works which focus on some slogans. Then I make the work named “Laid off ”

From this piece work, this series find its main attitude. At that time, the problem of food safety did not appear in China. In 2011, plasticizer was found to be added to drinks. I did a work about that, from then on, all kinds of food safety affairs was exposed. In 2009, I did a work about the instant noodles. A piece of news tell that,
the noodles could burn. The second time I did a work about it is because of that as for the cup of instant noodles, the cup contains the fluorescent powder which could lead to cancer. I find that the changes of this series always show the conflicts of the relationship between the real world and the world which is created by the mankind. As the works I did abroad, for example, the works I did in Venice. After reading a passage in the internet which said the Venice will disappear with the rising of the sea, I want to warn the human race that such a beautiful place will disappear if we don’t start to take some measures to protect the environment. I care about the development of the human race here so that I hided there in the aim of arousing people’s attention about it. And like the Charging Bull, I pay attention the how that the stock, currency and economy, which are created by mankind, influence so much to the real world. And the Twin Towers which represents war or terrorism also make an impact on people’s mind. Both of them, I did work which focus on them. I want to express confusions of mine about some problems which restrain the development of the human race and the human beings live in this times have to face to.

While you are making yourself disappear, you also make some concepts visible in your works. Like those works in grocery stores, I see that there’s you hiding in there but there are also some hidden ingredients in those cereals, puffed food, sodas and instant noodles. Do you also want people to see this kind of stuff that they would normally never pay attention in their daily routine?

Just as what I felt so many years in China, no matter the politics situation, the economic situation or the environment, all those things which were made by human beings, with the development of the society, become a kind of restriction that hinder the development of the civilization. The destruction of the environment will do harm to people’s health, the politics will control people’s mind. I use my work to express that human beings need to rethink and doubt to the reality of the society and to the modern civilization.

What do you think is the most ‘invisible’ thing in our contemporary world?

The most invisible thing is people’s inner life. Chinese has a proverb, “知知知知知知知”, meansyou may know a person’s face but not his mind. People’s inner life is unpredictable and unfathomable. In my work, I tried all the time to gradually dig out the inner life of the crowd, especially their inner life about the society. This is what my artwork focus on. And in the meantime, I will try to express my own attitude about the relationship between individual and the society. And I try to use this way to create an interactive process between individual me and the society. In the future, I will pay more attention on this and try to explore further about the identification of human’s heart or spirit.

In one of your previous interviews you mention that talking about pure art in China is really difficult because it’s always tied to survival. Are you destined to make ‘survival art’? Do you see yourself living and working in a different?

Personally, many projects of mine is not only based on my willing, I don’t hate commercial cooperation, however, I will refuse the pure commercial cooperation. I will always pick up or seek some projects which I could find a way leading to a win-win ending, which means I could do some artistic creation and it is also proper for the commercial side.

Was there a particular moment in your life that you wanted to be invisible?

Actually, everyone live their life in a situation which they hide some of their nature. If people don’t do this, the whole society will turn to be chaos. Everyone hide themselves in varying degrees, because they need to live together and play some kind of role in the society.

You also showed a new set of works in the form of welding masks in one of your solo shows at Eli Klein Gallery–now Klein Sun Gallery in New York. How do the masks relate to your photographic work and where do they stand?

The opera masks series grows up based on my work and my own thought. My Hiding in the City series is a series that I paint my body, hand, face, hair as the background appears until I could hide into the background. One topic of this series is some drinks or foods appear in China which contains some food additives which is harmful to human’s body. Gradually, I think I could change another way to express such anxiousness about living of mine. I have been seeking the medium for a long time and find nothing until the mask of electric soldering come to my mind. I choose this because it could carry this topic. People use such mask to protect themselves, and I put the protection and the harm together. Actually, the mask of Peking Opera earliest appeared in a kind of dance for sacrifice in primitive society. People draw their worship about the God and the life into a mask and dance wearing it to express the hope of life. Gradually, the mask turns to the Peking Opera Mask and used to represent different personality. Now I take this medium and draw the external packing of drinks or foods which are harmful to health. It is still colorful as what used to be, however, the style expresses my tangle of life.

Have you ever been to Istanbul? Maybe you have, but we couldn’t spot you :) When you come to Istanbul this September, where would you want to camouflage yourself into?

If I have chance, I prefer some historic places, since Turkey has a long history and it is at the crossroads where East meets West for really long time. I would like to choose the place where is connected to the history and the place where could remind people something in the history.

What are your upcoming projects about? What are your expectations about the future?

I have many plans in the future. And this year I will put my attention on my sculpture and in the meantime, this year I will cooperate with the Renault Vehicles. And a new light box artwork which I add paint on it will comes out. I believe that my work could be more perfect and express my inner world completely.

As for Hiding in the City Series, Since I’m a Chinese artist, my root is in China. Now, there are two direction I want to explore further, the first is to dig deeper on the special Chinese problem. I will try to grab more materials about what I could see and feel around. And I intend to choose some cities or sites which has historic meaning in the history of China and take pictures there. The other one is that I want to expand our visions to be global. I want to put my eyes on some society problems, like slum problem, war and racial problem in the Africa, South America, and the Middle East. I supposed that in some parts of the world, the human beings’s civilization is still stay in a low level and I want to record it using my work.

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