Density 1-6
Liu Wei
刘韡
Production date
2013
Object Detail
Media
books, steel, plywood
Measurements
various dimensions
Notes
Density 1–6 (2013), with separate pieces weighing between 400 and almost 1500 kilograms, is an enormous installation of monumental geometric forms looming over the visitor. Each is made from books that have been glued together, compressed and then cut to the shapes of an internal armature, the edges of the pages still visible. The softness in these slightly varying paper surfaces contrasts with the solid, abstract shapes. Their muted tones – white, off-white, cream, warm grey and softest beige – have the appearance of stone, and yet they have a tactile quality possessed only by paper. Recalling 1970s Minimalist sculpture, the weighty objects also reference the geometric forms that Chinese art students were once obliged to render in pencil and charcoal at the start of their training. The work continues Liu Wei’s use of real materials and found objects, including the books he used in earlier works in which layered stacks of books were cut to represent large rocks from which skyscraper-like structures emerge. In Density, though, the books should not be interpreted as symbols of knowledge; rather, says Liu Wei, their form and material together create an abyss, a problem to think about, ‘a veiled discourse’. Density has a strange quality of emptiness – books that once contained a wealth of knowledge have been imprisoned within the huge forms, reduced to presenting blank surfaces onto which people must inscribe their own dreams and desires.
Accession number
2014.160