Shi Yong, Shanghai, 1963. Lives in Shanghai.
The Moon's Hues are Teasing, 2002
Polyester, cloth, light, loudspeaker
Trousers 186 x 142 X 307 cm
Bone 150 x 28 x 20 cm


Two enormous hands, rather than feet, protrude from a pair of classic-cut trousers three meters long. The white cuffs that can be seen are those of a shirt. Since the giant has only lower limbs and we do not know what it looks like in its entirety, we can only wonder if they are two arms or two legs. On the floor, a pink dog bone - one meter and a half long – radiates electric light. Inside it is a continuously repeated recording of a cocktail party at the Shanghai Biennale of 2002.

In this installation, everything competes to create an absurd situation in which the union of the elements that we are provided, alien to the real, is not sufficient to suggest the identity of the subject, even in our imagination. If hands in the place of feet make us think of a monstrous figure, at the same time, in the collective imagination, the classic cut of the clothes are associated with ordinary situations. The subject seems to be taking part in an elegant party where everything competes to foster a show of vanities: it is the being there that justifies the being. As the title of the work suggests, the reflections of the moon are deceivers. The illusion of being what we are not makes us strange creatures of undefined identity.