Liu Bolin: Hiding in the City

Chinese artist Liu Bolin is internationally known for compelling works that combine Performance Art, photography and protest.  In elaborately prepared photographs, Bolin paints himself with perfect camouflage to disappear into busy background settings.  He employs concealment as a method for addressing aspects of identity and appearance.  Using his own clothed body as a canvas, he creates scenes that are statements about individuals and their place in contemporary society.  Liu Bolin is best known for his Hiding in the City series; photographic works that began as performance art in 2005.

In Hiding the City Beijing, Bolin gives special attention to the various social problems that accompany China’s rapid economic development, making social politics the crux of his pictorial commentaries. BAMs exhibition will feature 50 of Liu Bolin’s most popular images selected from the Hiding in the City, Beijing, as well as works created and photographed in New York City and Los Angeles.

BAM will also feature Liu Bolin’s 45-foot-long Nine–Dragon Screen Photographs from his 2010 series Hiding in the City, Beijing, in BAM’s Sculpture Court beginning December 13, 2014.

Born in China’s Shandong province in 1973, Liu Bolin earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Shandong College of Arts in 1995 and his Master of Fine Arts from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 2001.

Organized by the Boise Art Museum

Sponsored by Bev and George Harad and Holland & Hart, LLP

Images courtesy of the artist and the Klein Sun Gallery.