In November of 2013 the city of Caracas became the headquarters of the projects of Liu Bolin. The strong political, anthropological and social accent of his work here took a statement that deeply touches our position as subjects immersed in a conflictive context, where the identity fades into a permanent bombardment of problems.

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The production process also marks an executive pattern. The Freites Gallery became, for seven days, a huge and dynamic workshop for the articulation of a team of hyperrealist painters who came massively to the call, with about twenty volunteers for each photo, whose bodies represented the selected image. They were joined by carpenters, workshop assistants and support staff, as well as a set of ten video projectors to reflect the images on the bodies and stages, as well as the equipment of furniture and scenery designed especially for the occasion. With all these elements the artist built a kind of iconographic cartography of the Venezuelan situation. The set was based on a map of our idiosyncrasy. Liu Bolin knows how to hit the target to detect the elements that build the identity, and that ability was revealed in the Caracas Project:

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Inflation, shortages and idiosyncrasies: Banknotes, food products and consumer products

The subject of economics attracted the attention of the artist.The variety in the denomination of the banknotes and their designs (the different images of animals and patriotic heroes, the symbols) were also reason of his attention. The queues at groceries and supermarkets moved their interest and decided to incorporate products such as Flour PAN, beer, comic book shelves and fruits of the region, displayed on their characteristic wooden shelves and drawers.

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The targets: The human figure as target of the target

The image of concentric circles of target shooting, which turns the human figure into a target, is a project that Liu Bolin is undertaking in various cities with the intention of making an exhibition of all the images at the end of the journey . In this series the individuality is completely lost: when comparing the images of different races and countries, it is not possible to determine from where and who is each who, what is his race or to which ethnic group he belongs.

In this sense, the human target acquires a double dimension: on the one hand, it exhibits the artist's interest in proposing it as a universal image (we are all being observed, we are all targets, targets in a social practice of target shooting); But we could also relate it to the high levels of insecurity in the country. The theme unfolds new edges in Venezuela, its dynamics as well.

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Natural and urban environments: hidden in the city and in the landscape

The second articulation of identity-building elements by Liu Bolin in Venezuela is their own integration-disintegration in the environment. From the landscape, the artist selected the frontal shot of the Angel Falls and generates a monumental perspective where the body blurs between the vegetation and the stone mountain, leaving in sight the monumental waterfall.

The work restores an encounter with the force of nature that is imposed on the human figure. 

To enter the urban horizon, the artist chose the Work of the Urban Artist Flix located in the Municipality Chacao and the stands designed by Carlos-Cruz Diez in the Creative Hill of the Metropolitan University.

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