ShanghART Gallery is pleased to announce that Yang Fudong’s solo exhibition “Endless Peaks” will open on 8th November at the gallery’s Westbund space. “Huihua dianying” or “Painting as a film”, a concept that Yang Fudong has been developing for years, evolves in this exhibition as the main way to investigate the spiritual landscape of people. Works on display span painting, photography to video installation, and intend to reconstruct the narrative structure of viewing. The exhibition will run through 24 January 2021.
The title of the exhibition, Endless Peaks describes the continuous mountain ranges lying in an endless sea of clouds appearing when looking into the far distance from the top of a mountain. Developing from the concept, the artist draws figures and stories from traditional paintings in different dynasties as the source of his works. The textures exuding from materials allow the artist to re-portray contemporary spirituality with his re-creation implied in the ancient classics. Painting as the accumulative history of observation presents the influential correlations of “Huihua dianying” （or “Painting as a film”） between the “sensory” and “imagery” through the commonality of individual cognitive traces and distinctive creation. Exhibited works closely collaborate with the gallery’s two-storey characteristic architecture, which creates layered viewing dimensions for audience to interact with works and immerse themselves in the space.
Yang Fudong’s works are known for his signature temperament and avant-garde perceptions of moving images. In recent years, his works endeavour to practice and challenge multi-boundaries and limits of creation including the definition of film itself, the critical point between viewing and the viewed, relationships between medium and narrative etc. Inspired by “sense”, the crucial range of Chinese aesthetic thinking as the core trajectory, the artist unearths and recreates from the fragments of history and culture to continually query the essence of human’s spiritual life.
About the Artist
Yang Fudong was born in Beijing in 1971, and now lives and works in Shanghai. He graduated from the Department of Oil Painting, China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. He is among the most successful and influential Chinese artists today. Yang Fudong has participated in prestigious international art exhibitions including Su Zhou Museum (2019); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2017); Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris, France (2016); The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2013); Tate Liverpool (2007); Tate Modern (2004); Centre Pompidou (2003). His works also included in La Biennale de Lyon (2013); Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013); 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010); 52nd International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale (2007); The 5th AsiaPacific Triennial (2006); FACT Liverpool Biennial (2004); 50th International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale (2003); Documenta 11 (2002); 4th Shanghai Biennale (2002); 7th International Istanbul Biennial (2001) etc.
His solo exhibitions widely held at the most acclaimed institutions and galleries, including Dawn Breaking, Long Museum (West Bund), Shanghai (2018); Moving Mountains, Shanghai Center of Photography, Shanghai (2016); Twin Tracks: Yang Fudong Solo Exhibition, Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2015); The Light That I Feel, SALT outdoor video installation, Sandhornoya, Norway (2014); Yang Fudong: Estranged Paradise, Works 1993-2013, The Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland (2013); Quote Out of Context, Solo Exhibition of Yang Fudong, OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shanghai (2012); One Half of August, Yang Fudong Solo Exhibition, Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London, U.K. (2011); Yang Fudong: Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest and Other Stories, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece (2010); Dawn Mist, Separation Faith, Yang Fudong’s Solo Exhibition, Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai (2009); Yang Fudong: the General’s Smile, Hara Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2008); Yang Fudong: Don’t worry, it will be better…, Kunsthalle, Wien, Austria (2005) ; Yang Fudong, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’arte contemporanea, Torino, Italy (2005); Five Films, The Renaissance Society, Chicago, U.S.A (2004) etc.