Li Wei is a contemporary artist from Beijing born in Hubei, China, in 1970. His work often depicts him in gravity-defying situations. Wei started off his performance series, Mirroring, and later on, took off with his Falls series which shows the artist with his head and chest embedded into the ground. Through this performance, he wanted to relay the modern man’s desire to hide away from daily problems. His work is a mixture of performance art and photography that creates illusions of a sometimes dangerous reality. The artist states that these images are not computer montages, but that he uses mirrors, metal wires, scaffolding, and acrobatics.
Many of Li Wei’s works are done through the usage of mirrors. The mirror would usually contain a hole in the middle for Li Wei to insert his head. With this technique Li Wei is able to create “illusory superimpositions and fusions.” Within the Chinese culture the mirror possesses a great symbolic meaning. It is an indicator of truth, allowing people to look at themselves and the mistakes they have made in life. Furthermore, there is a Chinese proverb that says “take history as a mirror”, which implies that history will occur again and it is essential to recognize mistakes made in the past and react differently when similar issues come up again.
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