Journey of a yellow man no. 13: Fragmented bodies/shifting ground 1999

As with so much of Lee Wen’s performance-based work, the local context is of immense significance. For ‘The 3rd Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT3), he walked through Brisbane as ‘yellow man’ and filmed it. His journey started from a suburban home and continued into the city. He walked past the Storey Bridge, caught a ferry into the CBD, walked through the Queen Street Mall and across the Victoria Bridge, and finished at the steps of the Gallery. Throughout this journey, he carried a heart in his hands, which he laid down at the doors of the Gallery and proceeded to pry open.

Within the context of APT3, ‘yellow man’ was a persistent figure of intervention that continually questioned notions of how identities are formed and arrived at. Lee Wen’s imagery articulates a complex and multi-layered negotiation of self-representation. As a Chinese artist, the all-over yellow paint exaggerates his own ethnicity; however, rather than suggesting a straightforward embrace of Chinese-ness, his ‘performance’ of identity is ambiguous and playful.