Liu Bolin - Modern Artist Inspiring The Advertising World

Liu Bolin has produced some more great self-portraits for the series Hidden Cities. The latest work brought back an advertising campaign that I had seen around London either early last year or the year before. The series stood out to me because the reference to Liu Bolin series of work. I only knew this because of being at university at the time and stumbling upon him during research for a project I had in mind (which never materialized in the end), the series I felt was a great way to advertise The Prince's Trust help to the young, with a tag-line "Lost Generation" and from afar an urban landscape image that when viewed  more closely you start to see this lost, invisible and upset individual materialize in front of you. When looking for this series I stumbled across a large amount of ad campaigns that have taken direct influence from Liu Bolin, from sports to alcohol and as mentioned the lost generation. With all the campaigns that I have found none have used Liu Bolin himself to create them, except one from Ford, which has a great post on Liu Bolin and how he goes about creating these great pieces of Modern Art.

Bombay Beach

Directed by Alma Har'el this documentary follows three residents living in Bombay Beach, Salton Sea, California. This accidental artificial lake became an American Dream, the in scene for wealthy holiday goers and a development scheme boom peaking in the late 1950's. After this it slowly declined to a scene of old, weathered and warn out buildings, with a community of largely poor, working class and retired misfits. Alma Har'el brings us the life of three males living in Bombay Beach, one young child, one teenager and one retired old man. Bringing together three essential parts of manhood in a place that has seemed to have been left behind in the dust for many years, with this you start to understand what has happened to the American Dream and how the people left behind cope with day to day lives during a severely bad economic climate. What makes this documentary stand out from others is the way Alma Har'el has filmed it. With artful photography, dreaklike choreographed dance scenes, juxtapositions of outcasts and oddballs in beautiful scenes rich in the light of sunset and sunrise and moments of uplifting humanity and moments that create a bleak look on reality, this film stands out as a new breed of documentary film making.