Liu Wei (b. 1972)

orking in a host of media, varying between video, installation, drawing, sculpture and painting, there is no stylistic tendency which ties Liu Wei's work together. Rather, Liu perceives the artist's function as a responsibility of unmitigated, uncensored expression, tied to neither ideology nor form. Throughout Liu's work lies an engagement with peripheral identity in the context of wider culture; his works often describe a sentiment of excess, corruption, and aggression reflective of cultural anxiety. A parody of grotesque consumption emerges with Liu Wei's vast installation Love It! Bite It! - a model plan of a city made entirely from dog chews. Comically editing down the world to only the 'tastiest' bits, Liu's utopian vision re-engineers the breadth of Western history - from the Coliseum to the Guggenheim - as a carnivorous spectacle. Constructed with painstaking detail, ornate columns, cornices, and magnificent domes tower with warped approximation giving the scene a post-apocalyptic aura, rendering cultural heritage and power as an abject skeletal remain.