There’s a brief interview with him in White Hot Magazine which I quote from here:
LB: There are two main influences. The first is the environment, the experience of living. That’s my main influence. The second influence would be the demolishment of Suojiacun Village, the art village where I lived with my friends. That was my first time to be personally affected in a major way by the government’s decisions. They destroyed my studio and made me homeless! After all that I became very concerned with the state of China. My work is really an expression of my concern…. In China the idea is that one more is not too many, one less is not too little. One person means basically nothing to the greater environment. In Hiding in the City the individual was present, but dissolving into the landscape, beginning to disappear.
Although not entirely original, Liu takes this concept pretty far! The security guard rocks…almost creepy.
Liu Bolin has been doing his Hiding in the City series since 2005. It started as a political commentary on the tensions between the Chinese government and their people and the identity an environment gives an individual and vice versa. Liu Bolin will be exhibiting at Eli Klein Fine Art in New York from June 29 – August 28, 2011. Eli Klein Fine Art represents him exclusively in North and South America. More images can be found on http://www.ekfineart.com.