Exhibition Review｜Xie Sige – “Li Liao: Anacatesthesia”

2020/6

“It is actually the hometown, it is a kind of long-term separation after going back to a state of short rest, stay for two or three days is fine, to really put you stay there for a month or two months, it will really panic. This time because of external reasons you have to stay there, although it is really quite happy, but also really quite panic. I think this is definitely a big watershed event since the new century, people are finally facing something that they really don’t know what to do.”

This is how Li Liao describes the title of the exhibition, “Anacatesthesia”. Visitors to the exhibition will remember the twelve blue iron cylinders sticking out of the wall (I Don’t Know 20200205, 2020), and the iPad inside the cylinders showing the artist’s work during the epidemic: in the middle of the road, Li Liao is holding up a long, thin bamboo pole in one hand and moving it back and forth, struggling to keep it balanced, with a red plastic bag floating on it, surrounded by There are cars and pedestrians whistling around with their horns honking, but more people don’t seem to be paying attention. If the double yellow line represents some kind of conventional order, Li Liao’s behavior of topping the bamboo pole at the double yellow line seems to be dissolving this order, presenting an absurd picture that is very different from the everyday.

The blue barrel guides the viewer through the work with a perspective of distance, emphasized by the sharp edges of the barrel that prevent the viewer from getting any closer. At the same time, the barrel provides a kind of passage, as if inviting you to come and explore. As the viewer’s eyes move to the next narrow window, again with the artist atop a bamboo pole in the middle of the road, the viewer’s mind is drawn back to reality as the viewer distances himself to the surrounding scene – closed stores and empty streets. Does the red plastic bag foretell a catastrophic future? Or is it a breeding ground for new possibilities? The real and magical images make the viewer search for a possible explanation, but the artist does not give a clear answer right away, as the title of the series suggests a certain openness – “I don’t know”.

Compared to his previous more systematic work, Li Liao changes his strategy in the “Don’t Know” series. After the end of a long-term project, Li launched a new project called the “Don’t Know” series. “I just want to do more things that I don’t understand, that I don’t know what I want to do, but I want to do.” For the “I Don’t Know” part, Li Liao thinks “I should make it out, rather than having to think it through before doing it.” Earlier this year, Li Liao returned to his hometown of Honghu, Hubei Province. In his earlier work “Hand Washing” (2020), Li Liao washes his hands with soap by the Yangtze River not far from his home until he washes the soap out. After entering the “closed city”, there were very few vehicles on the road, so Li Liao thought of his famous stunt – topping a bamboo pole, and with the mentality of “if you want to do it, do it”, he started “I Don’t Know 20200205” (2020).

Another work in the series “I Don’t Know”, “I Don’t Know 20191226” (2019), is a four-panel video opposite “I Don’t Know 202200225” (2020). The video was shot in Shenzhen, the artist disguised as a homeless man, dressed in rags, walking through the streets and finally walking straight into a subway car, holding an iphone pro 11 in his hand and rubbing a piece of fatty pork over and over. The passersby who noticed the difference more quietly averted their eyes, maintaining some kind of decency. The work between the two series, “Tenderness” (2019), is a loquat tree in a flower bed with two Bluetooth headphones hanging from it. The viewer puts on the headphones on the railing, and the sound of rejection and denial comes from the headphones, thus substituting the artist’s sinking mood.

Li Liao completed a show with no ending and no answer, and invited the audience to come and watch it. The two works in the “I Don’t Know” series seem to be on both sides of the scale, and the passers-by and the viewers pass by to fulfill the roles of observer and recorder. The seemingly meaningless and “unthinking” acts precisely encourage the audience to actively think and draw different conclusions.