Boers-Li Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new work by Ji Lei entitled Place of Games and including 20 recent paintings to open 24 February and run through 30 March 2011.

Ji Lei’s series of work oriented around the figure of the amusement park was initiated in 2009, focusing on such images as derelict attractions, a twisting roller coaster, and a bungee jumper suspended in midair. In the contemporary metropolis, the amusement park is no longer limited to children but is rather in process of becoming an adults-only entertainment. As a supplement to the standard conformity of the city, it provides a space of affordable adventure alongside a guarantee of safety and trivial diversion; the amusement park of the urban age replaces the exploration of unknown territory that characterized ages past. Now the swinging vines of Tarzan of the Apes have become steel cables and the ship trapped in the vortex of King Kong has been reduced to a roller coaster, just as waterfalls are transformed into hidden artificial fountains. For Ji Lei, the emotional catharsis people of the city find in such petty diversions indicates that the amusement park represents a junkyard of urban affect. Visitors pay a fee to enter, engage in a set of ceremonies of risk, and release their negative emotions, a trajectory that often resembles the exorcism rituals of primitive religion: the amusement park becomes an altar for the rites of contemporary society.