First published in ART-iT.
Text by Robin Peckham.
I have not often bothered hiding my boredom with and occasionally even antipathy for the work of Li Hui, whose experiments with light often appear as uncritical and self-satisfied odes to the dazzling speed of modern technology. As often as not, these take the form of explosively red constructions of industrial scenes: the automobile, the engine, and so on. But instead of recalling the perversity of an affair with disaster that marks much of the relationship between Western aesthetics and industrial speed, Li Hui is more interested in a certain sexual appeal that he brings to this visual violence, typically failing to question the roles his virtual constructions play in the experience of lived humanism.
This criticism remains relevant with his latest monumental solo exhibition in Tang Contemporary, the curatorial work of which clearly attempts to convert the best aspects of the artist’s practice into an abstracted conceptual installation, much as Freedom did for Sun Yuan and Peng Yu in 2009. This exhibition, Unexpected… functions similarly, but does not seem to push any further past the status of visual spectacle. Upon entering the gallery, one must wind through the office and up a metal stairway, eventually emerging into the empty space over the darkened major exhibition area. A set of powerful green laser lights create a grid just below the platform on which the single viewer stands, creating a new transparent or “virtual” floor.
The effect is mesmerizing, but it is unclear how the piece functions on a conceptual level after this initial experience. Li Hui clearly possesses the visual wherewithal necessary to bring his light sculpture to the next stage, but he must allow a greater degree of conceptual ambiguity into his practice–otherwise, it functions on the level of public art and interactive design.