Aaron de Souza - Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation
Fudong's film and video work is about the human condition and mostly portrays his own generation of individuals in their late 20s and 30s seeking personal relevance in a rapidly expanding China. Using sophisticated cinematic language, actors and lush locations, No Snow on the Broken Bridge explores personal memory and lived experience and the alienation that young intellectuals feel.
The 2011 season at Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) opens with No Snow on the Broken Bridge by Chinese auteur Yang Fudong, a subliminally beautiful black and white multi-screen film that explores the lives of the generation of young intellectuals who have grown up in a country hurtling toward modernisation.
"Yang Fudong’s work epitomises how the recent and rapid modernisation of China challenges traditional values and culture," Dr Sherman, Executive Director of SCAF, said. "He skillfully balances this dichotomy to create works endowed with classic beauty and timelessness. His works investigate the structure and formation of identity through myth, personal memory and lived experience."
Yang Fudong’s film and video work is about the human condition and mostly portrays his own generation of individuals in their late 20s and 30s seeking personal relevance in a rapidly expanding China. Using sophisticated cinematic language, actors and lush locations, No Snow on the Broken Bridge explores personal memory and lived experience and the alienation that young intellectuals feel. Fudong’s elite milieu seem indolent and confused, trapped by a sense of self-imposed ennui as they search for personal relevance. The film is sumptuous, classically beautiful and timeless.
The exhibition will also include special screenings of Fudong’s seminal five-part film Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest, 2003-07, on selected dates throughout the exhibition.
Yang Fudong was born in 1971 in Beijing. He trained as a painter in China Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou. Starting in the late 1990s Yang Fudong embarked on a career in the mediums of film and video. He is among the most successful and influential young Chinese artists today. Yang Fudong participated in the 50th Venice Biennale (2005), 1st Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2005), 1st International Sharjah Biennale (2005), 1st Prague Biennale (2003) and the 5th Shanghai Biennale (2004), The 5th AsiaPacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (2006), and the Biennale of Sydney (2010). He has had solo-shows at acclaimed institutions such as Kunsthalle Wien (2005), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2005) and Castello di Rivoli, Torino (2005).
Fudong will visit Sydney for the opening of the exhibition and is available for interview.
Interview bookings and press enquiries: Michael Young 0410 408 492Image requests: Aaron de Souza 02 9331 1112 or adesouza@sherman-scaf.org.au
Michael Young
Publicist
0410 408 492
michaelyoung@aol.com.au
Opening 18 march 2011
Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation
16–20 Goodhope Street, Paddington
Sydney NSW 2021 Australia
SCAF opening hours
Wednesday to Saturday 11 am – 5 pm