11/5/2012
Yang Fudong
ShanghART, Beijing
"Close to the Sea": accompanied by various musical instruments, the love story of a young couple is unfolded on the same location. "The Revival of the Snake": the story of a soldier going into exile.
Close to the Sea (2004)
In this ten-channel video installation, a concert is being staged at the seaside.
Accompanied by various musical instruments, the love story of a young couple is
unfolded on the same location. The videos set on the centre display two scenarios
taking place simultaneously：one shows a young couple riding a horse along the sea
and the other a pair of lovers struggling for survival from a ship accident. The
other eight screens deliver at the same time the performance of diverse instruments,
a trumpet and a cello played on the rocks, for example. The background music, which
is hallucinatory, dreamlike and even uncoordinated, reflects the conflicts between
ideals and reality. The young lovers, despite the threat of death, continue with
their discussion of ideal, faith and anticipation.
The Revival of the Snake (2005)
This work tells the end of the story of a soldier going inti exile. On a sunny
winter's day, the icy ground is stared with snow and life seems as peaceful as the
weather. A soldier, escaping from a battlefield, comes to this deserted place which
is plagued with the smell of death, He is wandering, attempting to leave this
uninhabited world. The only option left to him, however, is walking, ceaselessly and
endlessly. What is waiting for him? A hibernating snake is startled awake from its
nice dreams and then sees a human, eyes blindfolded and hands bound on the back,
kneeling on the freezing ice-covered lake. Who is sentenced to death by the sound of
gunshots reverberating around the mountains?
YANG Fudong was born in 1971 in Beijing and trained as a painter at China Academy of
Art between 1991 and 1995, and then later in the Department of the Photography
there, as well as the Film Academy Beijing in 1996. Starting in the late 1990s, he
embarked on a career in the mediums of film and video and is among the most
successful and influential Chinese artists today.
YANG Fudong's recent important solo exhibitions include: 2011 The Distance of
Reality, Yang Fudong's Solo Exhibition, Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center, Havana,
Cuba; Yang Fudong, Utopia and Reality, Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Tapiola Finland;
One half of August, Yang Fudong Solo Exhibition, Parasol, Unit Foundation for
Contemporary Art, London, U.K.; Yang Fudong: No Snow on the Broken Bridge, Sherman
Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney, Australia; 2010... In the Bamboo Forest...,
Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, Switzerland; Yang Fudong, Seven Intellectuals in a
Bamboo Forest and Other Stories, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens,
Greece; Yang Fudong Solo Exhibition, Kino Kino, Sandnes, Norway; 2009 Yang Fudong:
the General's Smiles, Hara Museum, Tokyo, Japan; Dawn Mist, Separation Faith, Yang
Fudong's Solo Exhibition, Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai; Yang Fudong: Seven
Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest, Asia Society and Museum, New York, U.S.A.; Yang
Fudong, East of Que Village, MuHKA Media, Antwerpen, Belgium.
At the same time, YANG Fudong's recent work The Fifth Night will be exhibited in the
Vancouver Art Gallery from 12 May to 3 September 2012. Until 6 May, his works are
shown in the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art in the group exhibition La La La Human
Steps. And the new work Yejiang/The Nightman Cometh will be exhibited during the THE
BEST OF TIMES, THE WORKS OF TIMES - REBIRTH AND APOCALYPSE IN CONTEMPORARY ART-The
First Kyiv International Biennial of Contemporary Art from 17 May to 31 July 2012.
YANG Fudong Solo Exhibition - Close to the Sea・The Revival of the Snake
Opening 12th May 17-19
ShangART
261 Cao Chang Di, Old Airport Road, Beijing, China
Tue-Sun 11-18
Admission free