Quantum Gallery is launching artist Li Xiangwei's solo exhibition "Loving You Is A Sin" on August 9, 2020, presenting his series of works including image, behavior, video and graffiti works in recent years. The exhibition will continue until September 1, 2020.
Since Li Xiangwei’s first work published on his Wehcat moment "Am I Not a Contemporary Artist?" his increasingly diverse works has always revolved around the Internet. He maintains a keen observation of what is happening right now, extracting information and materials from the Internet, making up fictional possible narratives and creating works that exist between virtual and the real worlds.
The “Pink Eye” Series
“Pinkeye” is an important series in Li Xiangwei's digital photo collage creation. Using the Internet as a subject. He picked the warning sign (!) that often appear in Internet censoring incidents, as elements to start digital photomontage with character- istics of the Internet era.
The work embezzles the Internet symbols with warning meanings into the familiar image background of the public, presenting Li Xiangwei's objective and subjective expression of the current Internet scene. In the Internet era where images and symbols are widely spread, he has made his works highly recognizable through keen observation and playful creative techniques.
Grafitti Series
The graffiti series is rooted in Li Xiangwei's observation of daily life. He gives fictional stories new meanings to the existing environment and objects through the form of graffiti. This occasional creation melt away the boundary between the virtual and the reality.
Using text as the core of graffiti creation is both "dangerous" and direct, but Li Xiangwei's creation seems to have created a fuzzy and romantic zone. As he said, "People are immersed in this superficial self-sensationalisation, romance provides a safe heaven for inaction."
Videos and Films
Through the editing and rearranging clips of documentaries, advertisements, and movies, Li Xiangwei's video series consti- tute works with time continuity and black humour. Among them, the representative work “A Pig of Freedom“ is a video work created by Li Xiangwei based on the true story of a pig named "A Bang".
“The Pig of Freedom" was first favoured by urban people, and turned into a "pseudo-celebrity pig" in the village, and was eventually slaughtered. Li Xiangwei infiltrates personal history, emotions, and subjective views of the entire event, using the image language of reality and fiction, to try to create an untimely and contradictory individual identity, yet strives to pursue truth and freedom.
