Oscillating between risk and defiance, rationality and absurdity, Li's new commission 'Crescendo (2010)' is a performance-based video, dealing with the uneasy tension between state-funded propaganda and self-initiated protests. Sharing the title with his solo exhibition, Li's mini series of colour photographs 'Yesterday is History, Tomorrow is Mystery (2010)' alludes to a society redefining its aspirations, as it literally 'paints the town red.' Preceding these new works, 'Family Village (2009)' is a video installation meandering through a world of assembled dreams and a utopian ideal. Throughout this exhibition, Li draws upon a rich archive of materials including films, drawings, family snapshots, old postcards, and propaganda imagery, to reconstruct a complex world of fantastical imagination, against the backdrop of a historical and political epoch of time. Exhibition curated in QUAD by Louise Clements and Alfredo Cramerotti.

A fully illustrated publication Dinu Li: Selected Works 2009 & 2010, has been commissioned by QUAD and will be launched during the course of the exhibition. Designed with a DVD showreel, the publication includes new texts by Dr Katie Hill, Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies, University of Westminster, London; and Carol Yinghua Lu, the Beijing based art critic and curator. Dinu Li is an ArtSway Associate and this publication is part funded by the ArtSway Associates programme.