“Li Ran’s most recent project consists of a commission for the exhibition entitled The Parliament of Things: an Exhibition that Loses Itself, curated by Xiaoyu Weng as part of the CAFAM Biennial, Beijing, China (2014).
For this exhibition, Li Ran take as a point of departure a senior artist’s personal story of his first travel to Europe. There he encountered for the first time modern art in a museum and, surprised and intrigued, felt compelled to come back and observe the exhibited artworks whenever he had time. These repeated visits were the artist’s attempt to make sense of what he was seeing:
“The first years I was in Europe, I couldn’t understand the artworks in the modern art museum. I couldn’t even speak a word of English, but, whenever I had time during these three years, I sat there and gazed at the works. Suddenly I understood everything, I believe it was the enlightenment.”
(*The Oral Story was Artist Li Ran who heard from Curator Carlo Yinghua Lu and Artist Liu Ding)
For the CAFAM Biennial, Li Ran creates an installation that juxtaposes 10 artworks borrowed from CAFA Art Museum’s collection and colored and transparent panels (see sketches below). In addition to this installation, Li Ran will do a performance during which he will play the role of the older artist when he first came to Europe and discovered modern art works in a museum. ”
Text summarized by Marie Martraire
Detail pictures:
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