“It does not matter what you do, you will never be able to escape from the experiences you’ve passed through.”
Born: Luoyang, Henan Province, 1968. Lives and works in Beijing
A self-taught photographer who shifted into art while working as an assistant to Ai Weiwei, Bai Yiluo began assembling identity photos into sculptural installations—an ancient emperor’s burial suit, a skull, a skeleton and a heart. In Recycling (2008), he roped a giant, anatomy-class heart to a garbage-man’s tricycle cart in a literal interpretation of the saying “I gave my heart away.” What if someone really did decide to sell his or her heart, dirt cheap, Bai Yiluo says, “to the first guy who came around collecting rubbish for recycling”? And if love is given away too carelessly or if someone who is offered love rejects it, does that make love itself worthless?
