LI WEIYI
Associated Image
Author/ Li Weiyi
When Liu Gang, the curator, said that what he wanted to contribute to this whole project was a kind of thinking closer to the origin of images, I realized that what I could provide and present might be the power beyond "photographic image", something more than "shooting" and "recording". Specifically, it's the power to make images mutate and go viral on the Internet: the power to make them change while constantly replicating themselves. In this constant change, something new can be born.
That's why I picked these two works for the exhibition: The Family Album Project II and Wives because they are both explorations of the dissemination and transformation of images.
The Family Album Project II project began in 2012. It changed and spread in various ways over the next decade. It began as an online installation based on group photos commonly seen in family photo albums. This kind of photograph shows a monumental form and a desire for the collective. I strengthened this strong visual grammar by converting all of the group photos in my family album into seamless images, a technique commonly used in website design. By using simple HTML code, the crowd in each photo was transformed into an endless sea of people .
This exhibition is a ten-year retrospective of the project. During this time, I have collaborated with institutions such as schools, galleries, clothing brands, and record labels; consequently, this work has been incorporated into a variety of products, including wallpaper, books, record covers, clothing, and bags. I am more concerned with each individual's visual preference than with discovering a specific visual artistic language. The group photo is a well-known pictorial pattern, a visual technique that is commonly employed and even overlooked. I attempt to purify this widely used method and allow its power to reach its maximum potential.
Another piece I chose was Wives. I took this group of photos for a social event and posted it on Weibo. Within a week, the number of hits on this post soared, and the number of views reached 2.3 million. So far, more than 4.2 million people have viewed it.
If the data speaks for itself, this is my most widely known piece. But I am wary of this number. I understand why many artists are reluctant to get involved in trending topics or topics indicating assertive opinions. Because fans of this type of work often have a preference for the artist's standpoint and are unwilling to understand or criticize the work itself. There are certain easily misunderstood concepts weaved into the discussion of this sort of work.
For me, the importance of this piece is on another scale. I never mentioned any specific words related to the event in this post. But in the nearly 9,000 reposts, there are a lot of sentences describing it from the narrative perspective I provided, to express grief and anger, such as "No way you can buy it in a grocery store. It's definitely picked up on the street" or "It's a hairpin with periodontitis". They made me realize what "narrative completion" means.
