Artist Liao Fei is fascinated with the formation of all kinds of systems, regulations, etc. That fascination can be found in his reading list, for example, his interest in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the history of science. In Liao Fei’s recent practice his focus has been the construction of abstract closed fields - working mechanisms. In key works, the artist selects a variety of everyday materials to be arranged and displayed in an interior space. These reach a formal balance as governed by rules and as ordered as a sentence. Through the minimum visual representation, we sense the kind of immediacy that only belongs to math, logics, and abstraction. What Liao really wants to remind us is that everything is more or less problematic, albeit seemingly otherwise, and he asks: how does the logic of things come to be? Just as language is unable to describe the order behind the grammar, we are unable to pin down to the logic with which chances are created and ways in which objects function. In other words, we can never manage the so-called “systems” through which we understand the world and events around us, how they take place, how they work, and how they eventually disappear.
“This Sentence is False” is an annotation Liao added to his art practice. It shows that one attempts to use language to oppose the logic of language itself; and a component strives to find the boundary of the entire system. Here, Liao is committed to capturing the very chance to leap over reason and intellect. As audience, we might wonder: how are we going to understand these questions about truth, especially when immersed in an image-world where everything is based on the need to consume. This, might be the real context in which we should discuss This Sentence is False and Liao Fei’s practice.
