YANG FU-DONG
Yang Fu-dong makes experimental film and video installations whose strongly individual style reflects his perspective on the current changes in Chinese society. The drifting, surreal atmosphere of his films and sumptuousness of his images leave an indelible impression, In Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest (2003) seven people are transposed from their modern urban setting in Shanghai to a mountain forest, where they imitate ancient intellectuals by seeking spiritual freedom, resisting the mundane world of materialistic life. Yang metaphorically examines the conflict inherent in Chinese society's economic, social and cultural transformation, highlighting the gap between traditional and modern thinking. Similarly, the slow pace and pent-up atmosphere of the 76-minute film An Estranged Paradise (1997) ambiguously reveals the obscurity and emptiness of urban life.
In the installation Dai Hao and Man Te (2004) Yang creates a twisting, circular labyrinth. When visitors walk through the corridors, they hear the soundtrack of his 12-minute 35 mm film. They follow the sounds through the maze, but when they finally enter the projection room, they encounter a nearly empty space. The beam from the projector casts light through multiple blank openings set in the walls, and only when a body or an object blocks the projected light are viewers able to see the film's images. Through this "unseen film" and the viewer's "capturing of images," Yang metaphorically depicts the ungraspable nature of experience and the fragmentary state of memory. And most pointedly, his installation deconstructs and exposes the illusory vagueness from which images are constructed.
http://195.159.153.25/english/exhibitions/shanghai/dbafile1073.html?1=1&PageNr=3
http://www.the-artists.org/ArtistView.cfm?id=1CA02680-3BE7-4205-B2Fs092831EDC24
http://www.iniva.org/news/news152
http://www.judinbelot.ch/fudong/exhibition.htm
http://www.universes-in-universe.de/car/documenta/11/frid/e-yang.htm
http://www.themoorespace.org/YangFudong/YangFudong.html
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_1_42/ai_10869179
http://www.shanghart.com/texts/yfdnitm.htm
http://www.wenxue.com/scene/b5/critic/147.htm
Born 1971 in Beijing, China
Lives and works in Shanghai, China
Dai Hao and Man Te , 2004
35mm film, 12'
Performative film installation
Courtesy the artist
35mm film, 12'
Performative film installation
Courtesy the artist
Yang Fu-dong makes experimental film and video installations whose strongly individual style reflects his perspective on the current changes in Chinese society. The drifting, surreal atmosphere of his films and sumptuousness of his images leave an indelible impression, In Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest (2003) seven people are transposed from their modern urban setting in Shanghai to a mountain forest, where they imitate ancient intellectuals by seeking spiritual freedom, resisting the mundane world of materialistic life. Yang metaphorically examines the conflict inherent in Chinese society's economic, social and cultural transformation, highlighting the gap between traditional and modern thinking. Similarly, the slow pace and pent-up atmosphere of the 76-minute film An Estranged Paradise (1997) ambiguously reveals the obscurity and emptiness of urban life.
In the installation Dai Hao and Man Te (2004) Yang creates a twisting, circular labyrinth. When visitors walk through the corridors, they hear the soundtrack of his 12-minute 35 mm film. They follow the sounds through the maze, but when they finally enter the projection room, they encounter a nearly empty space. The beam from the projector casts light through multiple blank openings set in the walls, and only when a body or an object blocks the projected light are viewers able to see the film's images. Through this "unseen film" and the viewer's "capturing of images," Yang metaphorically depicts the ungraspable nature of experience and the fragmentary state of memory. And most pointedly, his installation deconstructs and exposes the illusory vagueness from which images are constructed.
http://195.159.153.25/english/exhibitions/shanghai/dbafile1073.html?1=1&PageNr=3
http://www.the-artists.org/ArtistView.cfm?id=1CA02680-3BE7-4205-B2Fs092831EDC24
http://www.iniva.org/news/news152
http://www.judinbelot.ch/fudong/exhibition.htm
http://www.universes-in-universe.de/car/documenta/11/frid/e-yang.htm
http://www.themoorespace.org/YangFudong/YangFudong.html
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_1_42/ai_10869179
http://www.shanghart.com/texts/yfdnitm.htm
http://www.wenxue.com/scene/b5/critic/147.htm