unfold yourself / interview with artist li binyuan

Portrait courtesy of the artist.

Li Binyuan was born in Yongzhou, Hunan Province, China, in 1985 and graduated from the Department of Sculpture, Central Academy of Fine Arts, in 2011. Li has been exhibited throughout the US, Europe, and Asia. His work is part of the permanent collections of institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the M+ Museum of Visual Culture in Hong Kong.

Li explores physicality, material, conceptual cognition, and social values through action-based film works and performances that intervene in the social fabric of everyday Chinese society. His experiments occupy urban and rural spaces, from the public scenery of the streets to natural sites or remote post-industrial locations. Addressing the body as a sculptural material to enact creative investigation, he uses ruptures and repetition to manifest how sculpture and performance can intertwine. His work rearticulates social conduct while interrogating our experiences of the everyday. Li is the winner of The Merit Award by Documentaries of Chinese Performance Art (2015), the Golden Key Award nomination at the 37th Kassel Documentary Festival (2020), the Chinese Youth Artist Award of the 14th AAC Art (2020), and the Grand Prize Winner of the 17th Sovereign Asian Art Prize (2021).

VERA GAN: Your stays in Beijing (where you studied, lived, and worked for many years), Yongzhou (your hometown), and various residency programs result in many works closely bonded with the cities. Could you share your logic and methodology of art-making in different cities? Is the environment particularly important for making new pieces of work?

LI BINYUAN: I think the environment plays a significant role both in my work and my life, making a direct impact on its expression. Many works are not planned or rehearsed in advance; ideas gradually appear as I familiarize myself more with the place. It seems to be overly designed and planned to enter a new place with comprehensive preparation. I prefer being unknown and expecting whatever I encounter and making artworks based on my experience and feeling at that specific moment. By wandering in a place where everything is new, fresh, and unfamiliar, I improvise - this can better summon my desire for art making.

To elaborate with the work Stand Up When The Bell Rings created in Italy. I only started to have a rough idea halfway through my stay at Di Frino on the shores of Lake Maggiore. There was a church near my accommodation where the bell rang every day rhythmically and uninterrupted and it inspired me to do something related to the specific sound and rhythm. I also made another piece with a similar concept and inspiration. In a lake located in a forest on the border between Italy and Switzerland, I dove down naked, swam to different places, and emerged out of the water repeatedly like a fish coming up for air. It was almost November, and the water was exceptionally cold. As I continued, the chill of the water seeped into my body from head to toe. It was unbearable. In the end, I started to vomit, and my lips turned pale.  

Li Binyuan, Stand Up When The Bell Ring，2017, Single-channel Video of a Performance, 4’55″.

VG: You traveled far to the national borders as seen from Trace. How did you start the work? Is it a result of long-lasting planning?

LB: Trace was born by chance. At first, the curators Sissel Lillebostad and Trond Hugo Haugen approached me to invite me to teach a performance course at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) for a semester, while the school offered me a studio space to work as an artist-in-residence. Due to the pandemic, the suspension of offline courses, and various limitations caused by the global pandemic, it later transitioned into a commission by KORO (Public Art Norway). During that period, I found myself highly interested in experimental cinematic language and I had a plan of traveling to northeast of China. I integrated my plan of work in my trip. With a rough plan and structure in mind, I kept making as I traveled, and finalized  the Trace through editing. Generally speaking, I flow as my life pushes me, and my art naturally follows as well. I won’t deliberately banish myself.

Li Binyuan, Trace, 2022-2023, Experimental film of performance, 60′00′′.

VG: I believe Beijing and Yongzhou are the two special cities for you, as you have lived there for a long time. Do you ever find yourself lacking inspiration due to such familiarity and closeness?

LB: Familiarity does not necessarily equal indifference and ennui. You can always find something that interests you or evokes enough as you wander. Earlier in my life, when I lived in Heiqiao, Beijing, I once sat on a swivel chair and set off firecrackers at an intersection. I would light fireworks in a polluted sewer, wash my face, brush my teeth, shave in the Line 1 subway, and even run naked on the streets. Living there, I felt all the events, the daily news from the neighbors, and all the unrest were closely related to me. They stimulated me constantly. Whether to resist, to face reality directly, or to respond, these direct feelings are inevitable. 

Hometown is even more special. Everyone shares a similar desire and impulse to know where we are from—how we came to be and where our roots lie. This is particularly pressing to me. Perhaps it is because of the drastic contrast between my professional career and my hometown—one is contemporary art practices and the other is a rural village that retains a relatively conventional production and social structure. Growing up in Yongzhou and studying and working in the art industry in Beijing creates a disjointed experience; my perception of my own identity is fragmented. In addition, my father’s fatal accident while working away from home will likely stay with me for my entire life. It leaves me with a never-solved question - an unidentified and unclear circumstance. All these seemingly fragmented and discontinuous episodes are parts of my past. Coming out from a world of fragments, I am piecing myself together to know about an unfamiliar self likely to be beyond recognition - not only where I am from, but I’m also curious about my future. 

The former refers to finding an exit from a closed-up circumstance, and the latter is fully open with no limits. Therefore, my future works will explore more possibilities with abstract, pictorial, and metaphorical artistic language. They are about communicating with the world and initiating dialogue with other beings.  

Li Binyuan, Spring in the Sewer, 2013, Single-channel Video of a Performance, 2’17”.

VG: Many of your works are created in your hometown Yongzhou. Can you introduce your hometown? Does living closely with nature make any difference to your art practices?

LB: Yongzhou has many mountains and rivers, where the Xiao River and the Xiang River converge - also known as the source of Xiaoxiang. The environmental variety and diversity offered me a rich and solid ground where I sourced extensive experience growing up. I have been enjoying nature's nurturing, and thanks to the environment, I have had many opportunities to get close to and learn from nature. It taught me how to walk into the mountains as well as how to step out of them. I always knew the way back home, wherever I have been, allowing me to journey further away. 

I'm interested in the dynamic of everything in the world. Everything is constantly flowing, changing, palpable, subtle, and mysterious. Sometimes, I will transform a specific setting into an installation and become part of cultivating relations with the surroundings. What I need to do is to find whatever is close enough to the image that I imagine. This is a recognition and imagination from an aesthetic perspective. Great danger and loss of control usually accompany such aesthetic-driven actions. In Blocking, I stood motionless in the cataract, attempting to block the waterfall. I have to do so, without a doubt. 

My artistic philosophy shares a resemblance to that of the late Ming and early Qing painter Shitao, only he used the brush while I paint with the body. In his Treatise on the Philosophy of Painting, his method of painting rocks and stones stems from his sensory experience of the natural landscape, which is ultimately translated into a relationship between his brushwork and physical sensation during painting. I express the feelings and images with me through performance. There is a similarity between the signifiers I create and Shitao’s painting theory: each movement and action is an attempt to draw closer to the image in my mind at that moment, and the image itself is the externalization of emotional will. You have no other options when such will is activated by the external world.

Li Binyuan, BLOCKING, 2019-2021, Single-channel Video of a Performance, 15′59′′.

VG: Art critics and reviewers often use Sisyphean to describe your practice. You said art is a form of “self-education" - for educating yourself to be a better man. Despite often leading to the opposite, it brings frustration and anger. How do you feel about this? Sometimes your works convey a clear sense of physical pain. Do you think that is related to self-education? Is self-education necessarily accompanied by pain?

LB: I think it's quite apt. Just now, we talked about the tragic inclination, and the Sisyphean theme is a very typical representation of that. It may be related to my adolescence when I enjoyed reading Shakespeare's plays and adapted movies. As I reflect on my work, I believe it has a literary nature. I love literature but have always feared exams and rarely finished a test within the allotted time. It wasn't until later that I found out I had a severe reading disorder. From this perspective, you could say my performances and works are for overcoming my fear of language. 

As for the pain you mentioned, I consider pain the most direct form of education. Pain and suffering point to different perceptions. No matter what it is, only you know, pain will never lie, and it is the most solid sensory experience in all systems. However, with that said, I won't actively seek pain. I feel the necessity to show my sincerity in making art, to expose my inner self. It is acceptable to feel some pain to prove my art.

Speaking of self-education, it's actually a form of self-governance. Being hurt is unavoidable when you search for truth and answers. Like in Great Waterfall, I thought I could do it, but the reality made me pay the price (Note: During the actions, the artist accidentally fell and was severely injured, resulting in multiple fractures). When these failed experiences are transformed into text, they are archived by my body and useful to me.

VG: Despite feeling frustrated from real life, as you mentioned in other interviews, you rarely stop making new pieces of art. What drives you to continue your artistic practices? Do you think it is necessary for you? Compared to before, do you feel any difference about your condition?

LB: In recent years, I have been consumed and suppressed by trivial daily life, such as the trouble I mentioned about renovating my house in my hometown. Indeed, it is frustrating, but, there is no other option but to face it head-on. For me, art is a necessity. I have positioned myself where neither taking good care of daily life nor pursuing art can be abandoned. Compared to my 20s, now that the number of my works has accumulated, my urgency of making new artworks is slightly lower. Instead, I sense a new urgency. My parent is aging as time flies, and so am I. Time waits for no one. I need to spend time settling us down and shoulder responsibility for my life. Meanwhile, efficiency in creation is no longer at the top of my concern. I don’t demand immediate results and speedy production, but I leave more time to digest my thoughts and changes. For example, I often encountered bad weather or inappropriate timing when planning my art-making. Now, I may wait for better timing or better conditions, even if it is maybe next year. In the past, I would have relentlessly gone ahead regardless of every inconvenience. 

However, regardless of whether then or now, art is always a life calling from my internal need. Practicing art responds to my own needs, primarily for myself. I always consider that impulse is very important in art-making, responding to a strong motivation that also represents the vitality of an artist.  

VG: You have exhibited many works that emphasize an intense body expression in your past exhibitions. The recent exhibition Give Back showcases a series of works that shift focus onto nature, the environment you merge. Do you consider this a thread that emerged a long time ago or a more recent variation?

LB: Some of the exhibited works are from earlier years; we are revisiting this thread through my artist journey during this exhibition. The idea of “giving back” is meaningful and very important to me. I didn’t realize it until you brought forward the lecture I did in 2022. My methodology of art pins at the word “give back”, hoping to give back completely what I have nourished. So I can be whole. 

The working principle of the Li of the Heart.

VG: Compared to many works recorded from a fixed angle, we see from some of your recent videos that the filming and editing are more complicated, which allows larger possibilities in storytelling. Is there any difference for you between the person in front of a camera and the person behind the camera?

LB: So far, I have only made a few videos of this type as you describe, but they span a long period. For example, I spent more than two years shooting to finish the work Building a Museum. There is more work and a more complex process when making a feature film. I want to be as precise as possible and use all the shots because I know exactly what I want. So, there is not much difference between shooting and being shot. The experimental short film Aphasis is more abstract. Narratives and meaning are interwoven together through composition, scenes, and actions. There is no straightforward and clear direction for viewing. Audiences need to take some time to watch. As images and plots change gradually, they may develop different feelings or be confused. Overall, I appreciate the experience of time and space, whether in the past or present, which also requires me to tackle some technical challenges for completeness.

VG: What prompted you to start making such experimental short films?

LB: It is not a sudden change. If we trace back, the first work of such type would be the 11-minute short film Night Songzhuang, which I shot with a Nokia E72 phone. It describes a few down-and-out young artists getting lost on dim streets. There were some lively conversations. It is a very improvising work. Another is the documentary 2119KM shot with a portable DV in early 2014, documenting my arduous journey home during the Spring Festival travel rush because I couldn't purchase any train ticket. The final version is a 40-minute edited film. I've never shown any of these two works. Other than that, I have participated in several films as an actor since 2016, such as Ju Anqi's A Missing Policeman and Drill Man, and Hu Bo's An Elephant Sitting Still. These experiences give me a deeper understanding of video-making and other working methods. 

“Aphasis” Poster.

VG: When did you decide to incorporate video into your practice? Has it been determined since you started performance art at the beginning? Besides shooting, post-production, especially editing, is also important as it results in the final product. It seems to me that you care about it and the editing is increasingly sophisticated now. 

LB: It was initially used to document performances because it was convenient. Performances need to be recorded; otherwise, nothing is left as it ends, like vanishing into thin air. By keeping videos as documentation, it will be available for others to check out my work in the future. As time passed, I became increasingly interested in the language of video. It is the closest to abstract language, helping to express what is limited by my physical body but also part of my mind. Therefore, I want to try more challenging works to align my actions, thoughts, and videos. 

Those works, such as Room and One Man’s War, are shot with fixed cameras. On top of the same timeline, I shift different angles during editing to illustrate a sense of movement, which is like sculpting a stone into the specific shape I want. The Trace series, however, is deeply personal. I integrated myself into different landscapes and filmed wherever I went, creating a sense of intimacy and connection. It is like fog and more difficult than making something figurative and realistic. How do you picture or describe fog with a stone? So, the heaviest workload occurs at the editing stage for this kind of work. My thinking is my method.   

VG: As you further integrate video into your art, do you have any thoughts or concerns about your current art practices regarding both performance and video?

LB: I want to continue exploring my artistic language, whether it appears more established with history to be traced or is a fresher attempt. I have doubts, and I am cautious. To me, it is about the logic of my art. When my accustomed artistic language develops to a particular stage, I do not want it to be comfortably settled into a state where I feel comfortable and convenient, thus stopping it from growing. It has to challenge me. In the ever-stopping change, I must maintain my identity and personality. 

VG: One can hardly find verbal conversations in your works, most are body language. Is it an intentional decision? How do you see body language?

LB: I first spoke in The Last Letter, but I had never tried before. I see the contradiction of language as the most pointed one. However, I will speak when it is needed. To me, verbal language is an obstacle, while body language overcomes this barrier. I welcome the various interpretations and perceptions of body language; it is the best scenario for me that every individual finds their understanding. Body language is an artistic expression that can communicate to people of different cultural backgrounds and races. It is trans-cultural and cross-boundary, even accessible to children as the sensory experience is valid for them. Maybe it is even more straightforward for them. Unfortunately, to me, my recent works are becoming less decipherable for kids to read. But I would like to try both ways. I do not want to typecast myself with certain framing; being diverse and open is always good.

Li Binyuan, The Last Letter, 2020, Documentary Film, 16′37′′.

VG: You said once you hope to learn how to navigate different circumstances, like an octopus. Could you elaborate on this?

LB: An ability to overcome and transcend. Life is already hard, so I should be as honest as possible in art making. If art is so important to me, I hope it can help me overcome sorrows and difficulties. In fact, I think it does. Art-making relieves me, even allowing me to be redeemed. Art brings me inner satisfaction and helps me to solve my internal problems bit by bit. I am always approaching, but never arriving.