This Is Me

Gilles Barbier Fake Revolution 2007 Musee d art contemporain du Val-de-Marne Collection This is me, I am here, I am watching myself. This is not a game, because participation is not me, but my shadow. Does the shadow carry my identity? Is that me? Speaking of which, is this "this is me"? It's hard to say, but not difficult. What is in the mirror is definitely me; what is in the shadow is also me. These images exist through my relationship; material existence exists through existing objects. The existence of physical phenomena—is it true existence? Probably not. Does one exist when absent-minded? The existence of objects is not really existence; being and non-being are almost at that very instant. This is me. I discover I am in the work; I participate in the operation of the work, which runs through me. I watch all my actions and behaviors. Finally, when I am filled with falling objects, I disappear. Having more seems to lead to being submerged; when I am filled, I vanish.

I regularly visit the Musee d art contemporain du Val-de-Marne in the suburbs of Paris. There is a new exhibition by Claude Closky, a French contemporary artist I have followed for many years, who is currently one of the most representative artists there. His solo exhibition titled "8002-9891" has an inexplicable theme, making it hard to imagine what he would exhibit. In the end, you couldn't see anything. In a large, pitch-black exhibition room, everything was conveyed through radio receivers in headphones, where listeners heard endless stories and anecdotes planned by the artist for the audience—a huge pile of nonsense.

Next was Mark Wallinger's innovative solo exhibition "State Britain," the winner of last year's Turner Prize, a leading young British artist. It was presented in the form of anti-Iraq War demonstrations, featuring strong international political criticism against the war.

Like before, I walked around the museum's collection exhibition again, discovering new works. For example, Gilles Barbier's subversive sculpture "Fake Revolution." Then there was the interesting Indian contemporary artist Shilpa Gupta, one of the most representative artists today, with her rare participatory video art piece titled "Untitled." It was quite fun. In this participatory work, I saw my own shadow and was submerged by falling objects. The work seems to suggest that as people possess more and more, they are submerged until they have no body and no shadow.

I often stroll through the forest of contemporary art that I like, absorbing new knowledge and accepting the bombardment of images and shocks to the soul. There are always infinite reveries and surprises.