The works of Yang Fudong mark a breakthrough in contemporary visual production in China. His first film, An Estranged Paradise, which premiered at Documenta XI in Kassel in 2002, showcased a new narrative and visual sensibility steeped in a contemporary aesthetic informed by multiple registers of heritage; his monumental cycle, “Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest,” was completed over the ensuing five years, poetically rendering the anomie of his generation as it came of age in the early years of the new millennium. As his film projects evolved into installations that sometimes encompass traces of their own creation, his subsequent works expanded his cinematic thinking into new spatial and multi-temporal dimensions.

Marking his most comprehensive institutional exhibition to date and his first in Beijing, this exhibition will include the inaugural installment of Yang’s “Library Film Project.” This project, initiated in the immediate aftermath of “Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest,” marks the beginning of an ongoing quest to create a movie that can contain a complex reality, simultaneously real and constructed. Inspired by his childhood in the rural eastern outskirts of Beijing, the exhibition will weave together elements of the past and present, as well as the public and personal. This exhibition is co-curated by UCCA Director Philip Tinari and UCCA Curator Chelsea Qianxi Liu.

About the Artist

Yang Fudong (b. 1971, Beijing; lives and works in Shanghai) graduated from the Department of Oil Painting at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions and galleries worldwide, including “Endless Peaks” (ShanghART, Shanghai, 2020); “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, Sandhornoya, 2014); “Yang Fudong: Estranged Paradise, Works 1993-2013” (Kunsthalle Zurich, Zurich, 2013); “The Works of Yang Fudong: Quote Out of Context” (OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shanghai, 2012); “Yang Fudong: One Half of August” (Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London, 2011); “Yang Fudong: Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest and Other Stories” (National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, 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, 2008); “Yang Fudong: Don’t Worry, It Will Be Better…” (Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, 2005); “Yang Fudong” (Castello di Rivoli Museo d’arte contemporanea, Turin, 2005); and “Five Films” (The Renaissance Society, Chicago, 2004).

Additionally, his works have been featured in major international exhibitions at venues including Suzhou Museum, Suzhou (2019); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2017); Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2016); the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2013); Tate Liverpool (2007); Tate Modern, London (2004); and Centre Pompidou, Paris (2003). His works have also been included in the Lyon Biennale (2013); Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013); the 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010); the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007); the 5th Asia-Pacific Triennial (2006); FACT Liverpool Biennial (2004); the 50th Venice Biennale (2003); Documenta 11 (2002); the 4th Shanghai Biennale (2002); and the 7th Istanbul Biennial (2001), among others.