interview by Zoé Paula
by Marie Maertens
By Emmanuelle Lequeux
Ni Haifeng, signs and codes
This could be an incomprehensible, encrypted language. A litany of numbers and symbols, it invades several walls of the gallery In Situ. It is in fact a self-portrait of the artist Ni Haifeng, who produces a magnificent exhibition. The Chinese artist, based in Amsterdam, searched through the digital depths to find the lines of code that encrypt a photo of his face. 500 pages of code, which he writes by hand, from exhibition to
exhibition, in a process that seems to be without end. Language is also at the heart of another installation, equally as strong. Recto is a wall of books, from all walks of life; verso, a wall of immaculate sheets, on which the artist projects a video. You see his hand gently stroking the paper, then writing long lines of numbers. A parable for the vertigo of the empty page, or a dream for free expression? A thousand readings can apply to this little library.