Liu Shiyuan

Re-en-act, 2012, photographic installation, 240 × 60 × 40 cm × 2

The creation of Re-en-act stems from Liu Shiyuan’s examination of the intensely stimulating yet mundane visual resources in popular culture over the past two decades. These images function to arouse desire and drive consumption, yet beneath them lies a statistical logic grounded in iconography—a manifestation of the collective unconscious, carrying the deep currents of long-term cultural evolution.

In Re-en-act, the artist collages and alters images of gemstones sourced from magazines, mounting them on green velvet fabric. The contrast between the luxurious imagery and the inexpensive material reflects, on one hand, the bloody capitalist logic behind the production of precious-metal jewelry, and on the other, playfully critiques the pursuit of objects that inherently lack value.