Solo Exhibition Berkeley Art Museum, San Francisco, U.S.A.
Berkeley, CA, June 5, 2013 — The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive proudly presents Yang Fudong: Estranged Paradise, Works 1993–2013, the first midcareer retrospective of one of most important artists and filmmakers working in China today. The exhibition, curated by BAM/PFA Adjunct Senior Curator Philippe Pirotte, and co-organized by BAM/PFA and Kunsthalle Zürich, features twenty years of films, multichannel video installations, and photographs by the artist. In conjunction with the gallery exhibition, we present Yang Fudong’s Cinematic Influences, a special film series that includes single-channel films by Yang as well as a selection of historical and contemporary films chosen by the artist.
Born in 1971 and raised in Beijing and initially trained as a painter in Hangzhou, Yang eventually switched his course of study to film and photography. Many of Yang’s films, rooted in traditional Chinese painting and in Chinese cinema from the 1930s and 1940s, have an atemporal and dreamlike quality, marked by long and suspended sequences, dividing narratives, and multiple relationships and storylines. They reflect the ideals and anxieties of his generation, a generation born during and after the Cultural Revolution that is struggling to find its place in the rapidly changing society of the new China.
Yang came to the attention of the international art world in 2002, when he premiered his first film, An Estranged Paradise, loosely based on Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise (1984) at Documenta XI. Beginning with a meditation on the composition of space in Chinese painting, the psychodrama follows Zhuzi, a young man in Hangzhou who suffers from a general feeling of illness. His condition, it becomes clear, can be attributed to a larger discontentment felt in Chinese society. Several themes associated with film noir play a significant role in the film as well as in several of his others works: an invocation of the past and anxiety about the future, and the tensions between indifference and engagement, remembrance and forgetting; the lustrous black-and-white cinematography reinforces the connection to film noir.
Like Zhuzi, the subjects featured in Yang’s works are mostly contemporaries of the artist. As Rey Chow writes in the exhibition’s catalog, “They tend to be young people in an old country, young people who, in other words, embody a long cultural history while their own experience of life is still relatively fresh.” Yang casts them against the consumerist backdrop of contemporary urban China, exploring their ideals and anxieties, and the dignity of the individual in a constantly changing society. This is most obvious in photographic series like Don’t worry, it will be better (2000) or Mrs. Huang at M last night (2006). Both depict a well-dressed woman and her coterie of admirers, in a hotel room or during a night out, seemingly enjoying the spoils of their material success. The sly glances of the protagonists leave the audience in a state of uncertainty regarding the actual events and storylines.
Other works refer to the Chinese literati painting tradition, associated with artist-intellectuals who pursued spiritual freedom by retreating to the mountains to live in seclusion immersed in the beauty of the natural world. The Evergreen Nature of Romantic Stories (2000), a series of photographs in which young men and women stare at miniature landscapes, relocates the importance of reflection in traditional Chinese gardens to the domesticity of modern apartments. In the early video installation Tonight Moon (2000), men in swimsuits and costumes intermingle in an Eastern botanical garden. Multiple story lines develop and diverge on small monitors and a large screen, conveying a sense of ambiguity. International Hotel (2010), the recent series of black-and-white photographs of attractive women in bathing suits dipping into a pool at an Art Deco hotel, touches upon questions of feminine interiority.
Yang’s most recent film installations reflect more and more on the process of filmmaking, and take the form of spatially open-ended multichannel films that he calls contemporary versions of the Chinese handscroll.
Yang Fudong: Estranged Paradise is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog featuring texts by Pirotte, Colin Chinnery, Ho Rui An, and Rey Chow. Yang will travel to Berkeley to participate in two public programs: a conversation with Pirotte on August 20 and an introduction to the screening of An Estranged Paradise on August 22.
Films: Yang Fudong’s Cinematic Influences
In conjunction with Yang Fudong: Estranged Paradise, Works 1993–2013, BAM/PFA presents two films by the artist/filmmaker as well as a range of works that have influenced him. We kick of the series with his first film, An Estranged Paradise, and are delighted to welcome Yang in person at the PFA Theater along with exhibition curator Philippe Pirotte. The remainder of the series will follow in September. Check back for the complete schedule.
Thursday, August 22, 2013, 7 p.m.
An Estranged Paradise (Yang Fudong, China, 2002)
Yang Fudong and Philippe Pirotte in conversation
Beautifully shot and edited in lustrous B&W, this quiet masterpiece offers rare glimpses of life in China circa 1997. Yang Fudong’s first film is a poignant psychological drama that follows the activities of a young man in Hangzhou. Zhuzi is preoccupied with his sexuality—engaged to be married, he is tempted by romantic affairs with other girls. Physically, he suffers from a general feeling of sickness, but no illness can be diagnosed. It becomes clear that the true origin of his discomfort may be found in a profound discontentment; like many young Chinese of his generation, he feels strangely un-housed in his own life. (74 mins)
PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley
Admission $5.50–10.50
Public Programs
Tuesday, August 20, 2013, 6 p.m.
Yang Fudong and Philippe Pirotte in Conversation
Join artist Yang Fudong and BAM/PFA Adjunct Senior Curator Philippe Pirotte for a conversation focusing on the protagonists of Yang’s films: young Chinese who, like the artist, have grown up in the rapidly transforming society of the new China. What are the ideals and anxieties of this generation? How do they struggle to retain personal dignity in a society adjusting to constant change? How do “minor intellectuals” (Yang’s term) pursue spiritual freedom?
Free admission
Friday, September 20, 2013; TBD
Conversation with Hu Fang and Daniel Brook
Presented by Asian Contemporary Art Week in collaboration with BAM/PFA
Noted journalist Daniel Brook joins Guangzhou-based writer and curator Hu Fang for a conversation in which historical and fictional visions of Chinese urbanization and its social impact converge. Each will discuss his latest book—Brook's critically acclaimed A History of Future Cities and Hu's Garden of Mirrored Flowers, both of which thematically intersect with the work of Yang Fudong—before engaging in wide-ranging dialogue.
A History of Future Cities features Shanghai—at one time the fastest-growing city on earth—among four major metropolitan hubs that became "instant cities." Shanghai, where Yang Fudong himself lives and works, can be seen to embody all the promise and contradictions of twenty-first century China. Garden of Mirrored Flowers, which tells the story of an architect who designs a theme park, comments on issues of urban planning, consumerism, and the struggles of creative practitioners in China today. Influenced by Yan Fudong's film-based work, the book is also an adaptation of the Qing Dynasty novel Jin Hua Yuan.
Free admission
Sunday, November 24, 2013; 3 p.m.
Eugene Wang and Philippe Pirotte in Conversation
BAM/PFA Adjunct Senior Curator Philippe Pirotte and Eugene Wang, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of Asian Art at Harvard University, discuss Yang Fudong and his legacy in the context of Asian art history.
Included with museum admission
Related Materials
Yang Fudong: Estranged Paradise, Works 1993–2013
Features texts by Philippe Pirotte, Colin Chinnery, Ho Rui An, and Rey Chow
Published by the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Kunsthalle Zürich, and JRP | Ringier, with support by Sifang Art Museum in Nanjing
English and German translation
Softcover with dust jacket; 160 pages
Publication date: August 2013
Support
Yang Fudong: Estranged Paradise, Works 1993–2013 is organized by Adjunct Senior Curator Philippe Pirotte and presented by BAM/PFA and the Kunsthalle Zürich. The exhibition is made possible in part by an anonymous donor; Marian Goodman Gallery; ShanghART Gallery; Dr. Rosalyn M. Laudati and Dr. James Pick; the Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing; the W.L.S. Spencer Foundation; Rena Bransten; Nion McEvoy; an anonymous foundation; and April and Glenn Bucksbaum.
Yang Fudong’s Cinematic Influences is made possible in part by The W.L.S. Spencer Foundation. Series curated by Adjunct Senior Curator Philippe Pirotte in collaboration with Yang Fudong and organized by Senior Film Curator Susan Oxtoby. With thanks to Sun Xianghui and Zhao Jing, China Film Archive; Noah Cowan, TIFF Cinematheque; Weihong Bao, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley; Brian Loftus, Marian Goodman Gallery.
About BAM/PFA
Founded in 1963, the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) is UC Berkeley’s primary visual arts venue and among the largest university art museums in terms of size and audience in the United States. Internationally recognized for its art and film programming, BAM/PFA is a platform for cultural experiences that transform individuals, engage communities, and advance the local, national and global discourse on art and ideas. BAM/PFA’s mission is “to inspire the imagination and ignite critical dialogue through art and film.”
BAM/PFA presents approximately fifteen art exhibitions and 380 film programs each year. The museum’s collection of over 16,000 works of art includes important holdings of Neolithic Chinese ceramics, Ming and Qing Dynasty Chinese painting, Old Master works on paper, Italian Baroque painting, early American painting, Abstract Expressionist painting, contemporary photography, and video art. Its film archive of over 14,000 films and videos includes the largest collection of Japanese cinema outside of Japan, Hollywood classics, and silent film, as well hundreds of thousands of articles, reviews, posters, and other ephemera related to the history of film, many of which are digitally scanned and accessible online.
Visitor Information
BAM/PFA Galleries: 2626 Bancroft Way, just below College Avenue near the UC Berkeley campus.
PFA Theater: 2575 Bancroft Way, just below Bowditch Street on the Berkeley campus.
Gallery and Museum Store Hours: Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Open L@TE Fridays until 9 p.m. Closed Monday and Tuesday.
Gallery Admission: General admission is $10; admission for seniors (65+), disabled persons, non–UC Berkeley students, and ages 13–17 is $7; admission for BAM/PFA members, UC Berkeley students, staff, and faculty, and children under 12 is free. Reservations are required for group visits; for information, rates, and schedule, please e-mail sgvisits@berkeley.edu. Admission is free on the first Thursday of each month.
PFA Theater Admission: General admission is $9.50; admission for UC Berkeley faculty/staff, non-UC Berkeley students, seniors (65+), disabled persons, 17 & under; admission is $5.50 for BAM/PFA members and UC Berkeley students. Additional same-day features are $4.00 unless otherwise noted.
L@TE Admission: On L@TE Fridays, general admission to the BAM/PFA galleries is $7 after 5 p.m. Admission is always free for BAM/PFA members and UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff. For updates on L@TE programs and to purchase tickets, visit bampfa.berkeley.edu/late.
Information: 24-hour recorded message (510) 642-0808; fax (510) 642-4889; TDD (510) 642-8734.
Website: bampfa.berkeley.edu
More Pictures:
Yang Fudong just finding his stride in BAM show
Yang Fudong: Estranged Paradise, Works 1993-2013 04.06, 2013 -05.26, 2013
Facebook
Instagram
WeChat 微信