Yang Fudong

b. 1971, Beijing

Video artist, filmmaker

Yang Fudong graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1995 (see art academies) and moved to Shanghai three years later to pursue his studies and interest in photography and film which, along with video and installation, have remained at the centre of his artistic endeavours. In 1997 he realized An Estranged Paradise, a 35 mm 76-minute film shot in black and white and ultimately presented at ‘Documenta 11’ in Kassel (2002). The piece tells the story of the frustration and restlessness undermining the life of a young Chinese man. Its flimsy narrative structure is constructed through intimate and censored views of events, involves leaps in time and the intrusion of alien elements, including reflections on boredom, melancholy and the search for peace, and combines classical stereotypes and role models with newly acquired images, like Western fashion statements, in a personal aesthetic language. In 2000 he took part in the controversial show ‘Fuck Off’ (Bu hezuo fangshi), held concurrently with the 3rd Shanghai Biennale, while Tonight Moon (2000) was featured at the Istanbul Biennale in 2001. In City Lights (2000), Backyard (2001) and Flatter Flatter Jasmine Jasmine (2002) he builds abstract imagery which suggest that the artist’s main task is to achieve a transformation in the viewer’s critical standpoint, creating an interaction between the urban environment and popular, romantic feelings.

Yang’s videos have been featured in several international shows: the 4th Shanghai Biennale (2002), the 50th Venice Biennale (2003) and ‘Chinese Contemporary Photography from the Haudenschild Collection’, sponsored by San Diego State University and the San Diego Museum of Art.

Further reading

(2000). Useful Life/Youxiaoqi (exhibition catalogue). Shanghai.

(2002). China Art Now—Out of the Red (exhibition catalogue). Milan: Marella Arte Contemporanea Gallery.

Kee, Joan (2002). ‘Yang Fudong’. Tema Celeste 92 (July/August).

BEATRICE LEANZA