Chen Li 陈莉 "Get out of my mind, get out of this room" serie, 2009

Get out of my mind, get out of this room

plastic, synthetic resin

50x70 cm

2009

DETAILS: “It’s a series of art pieces inspired by the work of Bruce Nauman and his love for words. What is the meaning of an artist’s work? What does it convey? Who admires the artwork wants to get in the mind of the artist, know his thoughts, his life, tastes and intentions. Empathize: in a word, the audience wants it all. To phagocytize is the correct term. A relationship of total surrender between the artist and the visitor, where one can decide to totally abandon himself to the other, could be built. This sense of reciprocate giving is found in the sincerity of the work. As in Nauman works, I eliminated all the excess, everything that could create disturbance: colors, useless signs, decorations and masks. The art piece makes way for a single sign, strong, unique and naked in front of others’ look. That only sign says it all.

"Get out of my mind, get out of this room"
Exhibition at Triennale Bovisa "Made in China" 2009

body and sign are one
70x100 cm
digital photo and mixed media
© Chen Li
2009

MORE INFO

"Get out of my mind, get out of this room," says the title of the collection of photographs, mimesis of an artwork by Bruce Nauman, on the long wall parallel to the works in the room.
A group of self-portraits that tell the corporal proscene of this idea, of this expression that embraces the body, which indicates a place to start and to get away from.
Signs and traces of unsubstantial body, objects, collected in two sculptural atolls. A set of diaphanous shoes and a nightgown put on a table, on which traces of reflective presences leave open horizons of life to the body that wore these artifacts.
An intense gestures inlaid objects, which tell in the traces of writing a drive of life, seismograph of emotions, now left in the clothes, which inhabited, now lie totemic.
Moments in which "the last fright falls, and the soul throws the whole adventure" are recited a few words on the nightgown, taken from a poem by Alda Merini of which the work is a tribute.
Moments of female sincerity, more attentive to the little things in life, sensitive in preserving feelings that make life unique. Moments of authenticity of living, of that immediacy that the female gaze places on the things of existence.

Ornella Calvetti

GET OUT OF MY MIND

GET OUT OF THIS ROOM