{"id":2656,"date":"2009-12-06T16:11:45","date_gmt":"2009-12-06T14:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tokao.com\/?p=2656"},"modified":"2009-12-06T16:11:45","modified_gmt":"2009-12-06T14:11:45","slug":"weburbanist-urban-camouflage-liu-bolin-the-invisible-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/2009\/12\/06\/weburbanist-urban-camouflage-liu-bolin-the-invisible-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Urban Camouflage: Liu Bolin, The Invisible Man"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"liu-bolin-invisible-man-5\" src=\"http:\/\/weburbanist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/liu-bolin-invisible-man-5.jpg\" alt=\"liu-bolin-invisible-man-5\" width=\"374\" height=\"320\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In a world of Photoshop and special effects, artistic craft wrought by hand is getting harder to come by. But <a href=\"http:\/\/dornob.com\/photos-of-invisible-men-how-to-camouflage-in-21-contexts\/\">Liu Bolin<\/a> doesn\u2019t need any fancy <a onmouseover=\"self.status='http:\/\/weburbanist.com\/technology';return true;\" onmouseout=\"self.status=''\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/weburbanist.com\/technology\">technology<\/a> to produce the jaw-dropping illusion of invisibility \u2013 his <a href=\"http:\/\/weburbanist.com\/2009\/02\/09\/the-uninvisible-art-of-amazing-urban-camouflage\/\">urban camouflage<\/a> photography is all paint and pure talent.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"liu-bolin-invisible-man-2\" src=\"http:\/\/weburbanist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/liu-bolin-invisible-man-2.jpg\" alt=\"liu-bolin-invisible-man-2\" width=\"374\" height=\"310\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Beijing-based artist spends hours studying his chosen locations and painting himself and other subjects, while carefully taking perspective and texture into account for spectacular results that render them almost invisible.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"liu-bolin-invisible-man-3\" src=\"http:\/\/weburbanist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/liu-bolin-invisible-man-3.jpg\" alt=\"liu-bolin-invisible-man-3\" width=\"374\" height=\"281\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But Liu\u2019s work is more than just a cool-looking feat of trompe l\u2019oeil. In the past, works depicting anti-government imagery, including some in which his Chinese subjects are in the grips of police officers, have resulted in the Chinese government shutting down his art studio.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"liu-bolin-invisible-man-1\" src=\"http:\/\/weburbanist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/liu-bolin-invisible-man-1.jpg\" alt=\"liu-bolin-invisible-man-1\" width=\"374\" height=\"298\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn my <a onmouseover=\"self.status='http:\/\/weburbanist.com\/creativephotographytechniquestypes';return true;\" onmouseout=\"self.status=''\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/weburbanist.com\/creativephotographytechniquestypes\">photography<\/a>, historical statues, costumes and architecture become symbols of that which confines us,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artinfo.com\/galleryguide\/24469\/11042\/214473\/eli-klein-fine-art-new-york\/artist\/liu-bolin\/\">Liu says<\/a>. \u201cI am expressing the desire to break through these structures. I portray subjects that seem to disappear into these structures and become transparent. The subject is released from social constructs and he is free.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"liu-bolin-invisible-man-4\" src=\"http:\/\/weburbanist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/liu-bolin-invisible-man-4.jpg\" alt=\"liu-bolin-invisible-man-4\" width=\"374\" height=\"288\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cLiving in the red hot China, I feel that I am not in control of my own life. However, I have an indescribable burning desire inside of me. Art is a weapon that helps us untangle the chaos in our lives. I hope that my artworks can calm people down during this period of constant change, but at the same time, inspire people to re-evaluate our environment and reconsider the problems arising in our society. In this transition period, I can hear the voice of Hamlet whispering, \u201cfor in the sleep of death, what dreams may come.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>(from <a href=\"http:\/\/weburbanist.com\/2009\/12\/05\/urban-camouflage-liu-bolin-the-invisible-man\/\" target=\"_blank\">weburbanist<\/a>)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a world of Photoshop and special effects, artistic craft wrought by hand is getting harder to come by. But Liu Bolin doesn\u2019t need any fancy technology to produce the jaw-dropping illusion of invisibility \u2013 his urban camouflage photography is all paint and pure talent. The Beijing-based artist spends hours studying his chosen locations and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-2656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photo","tag-weburbanist"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}