Sydney Biennale // Li Hongbo

I don't know if it's just that my eye naturally gravitates to paper artworks or if in fact almost everyone in the Sydney Biennale is favouring paper as their medium of choice, but it sure did make me happy to see so much of it this weekend. We caught the ferry out to Cockatoo Island to have a look at the installations and one artist in particular stole my paper heart... the work of Beijing artist Li Hongbo.



Walking into his installation felt like entering Willy Wonka's Paper Factory. A sun streaked room completely filled with hundreds of paper fans of brilliant colour growing up from the floor all around us. A vision of beauty... or so you'd think...



... but in actual fact all these beautiful blooming flower-like growths were actually formed of various gun models. Handguns, machine guns and all manner of guns... cleverly transformed into beautiful blooms. SO-DARN-JOLLY-GENIUS!

Some words from the artists mouth (or pen probably?!) More here:

The ‘flower’ in my work looks so bright and grandstanding, whether people can really comprehend the damage hidden behind it. When the muzzle points to any creature, no matter for what purpose, it represents the end of life or a painful struggle. We are all losers when the fall of lives reveal in our sight. 

There was abit of a queue to get in the room which almost put us off, but it's well worth seeing if you're in Sydney... even now that I've given away the punchline!