Hiding in New York No. 2, Kenny Scharf Mural, 2011
Archival pigment print face-mounted to Plexiglas
46.5 x 59 in (118.1 x 149.9 cm)
For Hiding in the City No. 2 (Kenny Scharf Mural), Liu Bolin spent hours painting his body to vanish into one of New York's most recognizable walls — Kenny Scharf's Bowery mural, a dense explosion of cartoon figures and acid color. Look closely, and Bolin is somewhere inside it.
The work belongs to Bolin's ongoing "Hiding in the City" series, begun in Beijing in 2005 after authorities demolished his studio. Since then, the series has taken him around the world, setting his camouflaged body against power stations, supermarket shelves, and now the walls of lower Manhattan. Every piece is painted by hand and captured in a single photograph, with no post-production.
The choice of Scharf's mural is deliberate. Scharf's work is maximalist and exuberant — pure American pop abundance — while Bolin's method is its inverse: slow, quiet, and politically rooted. The two visual languages collide on one surface, and the figure dissolves into the seam between them. The setting adds its own weight: the Bowery was once the nerve center of New York's downtown art scene, a street that has absorbed generations of cultural change.
Bolin has exhibited at Galerie Paris-Beijing and internationally, with a strong secondary-market presence at major auction houses. Works from "Hiding in the City" remain among his most sought-after.
46.5 x 59 in (118.1 x 149.9 cm)
For Hiding in the City No. 2 (Kenny Scharf Mural), Liu Bolin spent hours painting his body to vanish into one of New York's most recognizable walls — Kenny Scharf's Bowery mural, a dense explosion of cartoon figures and acid color. Look closely, and Bolin is somewhere inside it.
The work belongs to Bolin's ongoing "Hiding in the City" series, begun in Beijing in 2005 after authorities demolished his studio. Since then, the series has taken him around the world, setting his camouflaged body against power stations, supermarket shelves, and now the walls of lower Manhattan. Every piece is painted by hand and captured in a single photograph, with no post-production.
The choice of Scharf's mural is deliberate. Scharf's work is maximalist and exuberant — pure American pop abundance — while Bolin's method is its inverse: slow, quiet, and politically rooted. The two visual languages collide on one surface, and the figure dissolves into the seam between them. The setting adds its own weight: the Bowery was once the nerve center of New York's downtown art scene, a street that has absorbed generations of cultural change.
Bolin has exhibited at Galerie Paris-Beijing and internationally, with a strong secondary-market presence at major auction houses. Works from "Hiding in the City" remain among his most sought-after.
Hiding in New York No. 2, Kenny Scharf Mural, 2011
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