Liu Bolin World famous ‘invisible’ artist work blends him almost seamlessly into his background

Liu Bolin, the Chinese artist who has become world famous for appearing invisible in his art, has demonstrated in a time-lapse video how he melts into the scenery around him using a painstaking technique that can take up to four days.

The video, which was recorded at a TED2013 conference, shows how Bolin – with the help of a cameraman, a painter, and other assistants – slowly dissolves into his background. Liu+Bolin

Bolin’s outfit was pre-painted for the on-stage demonstration and only needed touch-ups, he said.

I stood up on stage with my outfit pre-painted,’ he told TED Blog, ‘and then one of my assistants worked with the camera and stood back to instruct the other painter on what to do, where to paint, what colors to use, until from the camera I appear invisible.’

In January, Bolin unveiled an exhibition at the Eli Klein Art Gallery in New York showed him melting into backdrops including shelves packed with soft toys and a magazine rack.

Each picture takes hours of painstaking work, as artists spend 10 hours at a time covering him in paint so that he blends seamlessly into the background.

The 40-year old is such a perfectionist, bystanders often walk by with no idea he is even there until he moves.

via

http://blog.ted.