Introduction

Liang Yue was born in Shanghai in 1979. She graduated from the Shanghai Art Academy in 2001. Now she lives and works in Toronto, Canada. Recent exhibitions include: Wang Xingwei in Shanghai 2002-2008, Power Station of Art Museum, Shanghai (2022); City on the Edge: Art and Shanghai at the Turn of the Millennium, UCCA Edge, Shanghai (2021); The Circular Impact: Video Art 21, OCAT, Shanghai (2021); Another Time, Another Place, New works screening, OCAT Shanghai x PHOTOFAIRS, OCAT Shanghai, Shanghai (2020); Dis-/Continuing Traditions: Contemporary Video Art from China, Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre, Tasmania, Australia (2020); New Art History, 2000-2018 Chinese Contemporary Art, MoCA Yinchuan, Yinchuan (2019); Chinese Contemporary Selected Videos, Cinema Dynamo, Centre D'Art Contemporain Geneve, Switzerland (2018); The 7th edition Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism \ Architecture, Shenzhen (2017); Intermittent, ShanghART Beijing, Beijing (2016); Easy Going, OCT Contemporary Art Terminal,Shenzhen (2014); Liang Yue: The Quiet Rooms, ShanghART H-Space, Shanghai (2013); A Lecture Upon the Shadow, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, U.K. (2012); Numerous, Liang Yue's Solo Exhibition, Shanghai (2011); Move on Asia: the End of Video Art, Casa Asia-Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain (2011); Shanghai Candid: Women In Motion, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery,U.S.A.(2010); China Power Station - Part IV, Pinacoteca Agnelli, Torino, Italy (2010); Shanghai Kino, Shanghai Kino, Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2009); China Power Station: Part II, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway (2007); China Power Station: Part I., Battersea Power Station, London, U.K. (2006); The Thirteen: Chinese Video Now, MoMA PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, U.S.A. (2006); China Contemporary – Architecture, Art and Visual Culture, Netherlands Photo Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2006); Restless – Photography and New Media, Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai (2006); Stop Dazing, BizArt, Shanghai (2005); Conceptual Photography from the Peoples Republic of China, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, U.S.A. and China Now, MoMA Film at the Gramercy Theatre,  New York, U.S.A. (2004).

In Liang Yue's works, either photos or videos, the "daily" is always taken as a focus. She uses easy-to-get materials with her acute art talents, keeps seeking, exploring, and capturing the daily routines, and extends form concerning life in the city to gaze at the eternal scenery in nature. A clear clue of her art practice could be witnessed in the massive works during the past fifteen years that the exploration of the beauty of insignificance, especially her videos, in which she keeps simplifying and abandoning the techniques of shooting and editing, challenging the art appreciation which the audience has been used to, as well as the viewers' retina and eardrum, patience and rationality, and further questioning the so-called significance and value of art as she treats the meaningless as the ultimate sign of her creation. Her works remind us of the manifesto by Werner Herzog stated in his Minnesota Declaration: Truth and Fact in Documentary Film:

"The moon is dull. Mother Nature doesn't call and doesn't speak to you, although a glacier eventually farts. And don´t you listen to the Song of Life?"