Benjamin Li

In today’s society, questions of identity, culture and integration continuously grow more portentous, while they’re discussed in serious tones. While gravity is justifiably employed it may cause one to forget the subtlety—and the absurdity—with which these matters tend to manifest in daily life, while it’s precisely these minute, seemingly innocent instances that mark our experience. It is in this sphere that Benjamin Li (1985, the Netherlands) makes his art and examines his subject. Born in the Netherlands to Chinese migrant parents, Li created the series Yellow as a means to explore the production, and especially the reproduction, of the identity he is continuously assigned: his expressions, his style, values and, as is to be expected, his color—the so-called yellow that loses its depth and is shown, in Choice, to be an artificial distinction.