Action

One of my categories was "verb", like, "action": things taking place, focus on the taking place. It was difficult to find an artist whose work focused on action, but eventually I came upon Li Wei. A surrealist photographer from China, his recent work has featured shots of himself in seemingly impossible moments of action, to the point of appearing extremely dangerous to himself. 

Simulated through complex assemblies of wires and cranes and the POV of the camera, yet capturing reality and connecting with the viewer, these are less like pictures snapped in the moment and more like the work of a medium artist, "staging" a show as opposed to "capturing" it. 

Li Wei says that his work carries a message about the security of the human state as we progress. Quoted here, he says: 

“There is a feeling of losing a grip on things, an uncertainty about the morrow. It’s a feeling of hanging in the air, of having nothing firm under the feet. And even if the family is my priority and thus a key part of my performances, I wonder: How much are we able to put up with?”

Although not in painting or sculpture, Wei uses the same concepts that I would like to use in my work exploring action.