Big Mouth-
Encountering the Long Cabinet feels like standing in the middle of a four-way crossroad. Atop its coarse, bubbling surface of spray foam, a layer of fiberglass, painted with black road paint, absorbs and flattens all traces of its under layer’s ridges and wrinkles behind its matte. Right against the paint, blinding sparkles puncturing a hand-paved layer of some hundred thousand road-marking glass beads not only recover all crevices of the bumpy foam, but reverse the all-consuming black hole of a backdrop to a balance of glittering flamboyance and hidden secrecy. Interested not only in duality in the literal sense, Liu aims to discuss the fluidity of the domestic experience, symbolized through his use of industrial supplies on bedroom items—made from materials one sees on the street, the cabinet actually serves as a giant, slightly awkward and aggressive protector of one’s most tenderly treasured. One may first be dazzled by countless glass beads fighting for attention, but the truly precious is protected and obscured inside the un-bejeweled cove painted with black 3.0, known as the blackest acrylic paint in the world. Hidden behind tender secrecy, the cove only opens up to whom it shares a memory. Telling a story of conflict and tenderness, the object shares reflection on the clumsy ways we show care to our beloved.
96"H x 24"W x 24"D
foam, fiberglass, glass beads.
2020
Photos by Menghan Zhou