ARTIST BIO: LIAO Wenfeng
Liao Wenfeng (born 1984 in Jiangxi Province, China. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany) is a contemporary artist whose interdisciplinary practice spans video art, GIF animation, photography, drawing, painting, sculptural and performance. Graduating from the Total Art Studio at China Academy of Art in Hangzhou in 2006, Liao lived and worked in Shanghai until 2012, During this time he also contributed as a curator at Shanghai Zendai MOMA, participating in major projects like Intrude: Art & Life 366 (2008) and Yang Fudong’s solo show Dawn Mist Separation (2009). He earned his M.A. in Art in Context from the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) in 2016, and has since based his practice in Berlin. Liao’s work plays with image and perception: optical illusions, visual puns, arthistorical references, and diverse symbols intertwining to reveal paradoxes and hidden poetry in everyday life. Throughout his evolving body of work, Liao continues to challenge perception, inviting audiences into playful experiences of ambiguity, visual wit, and subtle poetic dissonance.
Liao Wenfeng’s solo and duo exhibitions include: 2023 : “Not Flower, Nor Non-Flower”, Inna Art Space, Hangzhou, China. 2022: ”light, light“, Lechbinska Gallery, Zürich, Switzerland. 2019 : “Water without A Glass”, Inna Art Space, Hangzhou, China. 2018 : “Eyes Moving A Pencil”, Inna Art Space, Hangzhou, China . 2016 : “Handing”, Big Whale Space, Berlin, Germany. 2012 : Minute Gesture, OV Gallery, Shanghai, China. Solo Projects: 2018: “ Small Paths”, Videokunst.ch (Showroom im PROGR), Bern, Switzerland . 2013: 17ZWEI - A Public Art Project, Hardbrücke Zürich, Switzerland. 2010: 1467+, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Zurich, Switzerland. Group shows include: 2024: Spoiler Aktionsraum, Berlin, Germany; Inna Art Space, Hangzhou, China. 2022 : GLUE, Berlin, Germany; KINDL Center for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany. 2021: alte feuerwache/projektraum–Galerie, Berlin, Germany; Inna Art Space, Hangzhou, China . 2020 : Videocity, Congress Center Basel, Basel, Switzerland. 2019: Shenzhen Pingshan International Sculpture Exhibition, Shenzhen, China . 2018 : Inna Art Space, Hangzhou, China ; Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China . 2017: Diskurs Gallery, Berlin, Germany; CAFAM, Beijing, China ; OCAT Shanghai, Shanghai, China ; Inna Art Space, Hangzhou, China . 2016 : 3rd Shenzhen Independent Animation Biennale, OCT-LOFT, Shenzhen, China; Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China; The 1st Daojiao New New Art Festival, Dongguan, China; Migrant Birds Gallery, Berlin, Germany. 2015: East West Encounters International Photo Festival, Xiamen, China ; V Art Center, Shanghai, China; The 3rd Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Ekaterinburg, Russia ; Inna Artspace, Hangzhou, China; MOMENTUM, Berlin, Germany ; CAFAM, Beijing, China; Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou, China . 2014 : ART·SANYA, Sanya, China; 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai; amongst others.
Minute Gesture
2015-2016, video installation of 5 video performances:
Radically nodding or shaking the head in front of a landscape (2016), 2-channel, colour, silent, 0:30
Crossing a river with two chairs (2016), colour, sound, 1:24
Extending a road (2016), colour, silent, 1:36
Walking on the sky (2016), colour, silent, 1:01
The relatively motionless second (2015), colour, silent, 0:59
Minute Gesture is a series of video works that document the artist's actions carried out within natural landscapes. Through these subtle yet absurd gestures, the works reveal the unnatural qualities inherent in what we perceive as natural scenery. Liao constructs visual playspaces where the boundaries between object, body, concept and environment are humorously and thoughtfully explored. With minimal setups and poetic actions, each short-form, mute video performance investigates notions of resistance, balance, absurdity, and time. Filmed in natural or constructed landscapes, the artist’s presence becomes both subject and tool for subtle intervention. Within his gentle world of Duchampian ready-mades, Liao Wenfeng can leapfrog across a river by using two chairs as stilts, walk across the sky by lying on his back and filming his feet moving in the air, make time stand still by gently rotating a clock through one minute so that its second hand seems to remain at the same spot, or extend the length of a countryside lane by climbing over a step ladder he has carried there and leaving it behind for others. The artist’s neo-romantic relationship with nature is reflected in two identical views of the back of his head as he gazes at the sunset over the distant mountains, emphatically shaking his head “no”, and nodding his head “yes”. In ingenious and witty ways, his works reveal what often remains unseen: the potential poetry and paradoxes hidden in daily life. Together, this body of work playfully asks an all too serious question: what is our impact upon time the landscape around us?