NEW YORK—Chinese artist Yang Fudong is showcasing a new body of work at Marian Goodman Gallery. The visually arresting exhibit includes two film installations and a series of photographs. The gallery describes the trio as exploring “the relationship between time, place, reality and artifice.” The entire exhibition experience is presented in black and white.
The elevator doors open directly onto the gallery which has been transformed into a pitch black viewing room where “The Fifth Night” is showing on a series of seven screens, each displaying interconnected scenes from one narrative. Evoking 1930s Shanghai, young men and women appear to be waiting or looking in vain for one another amid bustling city scenes. There is no dialogue, only the sound of traffic and horse hooves around them. The effect is that of an animated painting.
“Ye Jiang (The Nightman Cometh),” a “historical fantasy” is showing on a single screen in another darkened room at the opposite end of the gallery. Off the stretch of hallway between the two screening rooms, a brightly lit space shifts your perspective. Here, seven large photographs taken around the Art Deco swimming pool at the International Hotel in Shanghai reference the post-World War II, modern Chinese woman.
Yang’s work is on view from March 28 to April 28, 2012.
All photos by Arts Observer
Above and top of page, “The Fifth Night,” 2010.
“International Hotel #6,” 2010.
From left, “International Hotel” #4, #7 and #1, 2010.
“International Hotel #2,” 2010.
“Ye Jiang (The Nightman Cometh),” 2011.
“Ye Jiang (The Nightman Cometh),”
“Ye Jiang (The Nightman Cometh).”
Hallway leading to gallery screening “Ye Jiang (The Nightman Cometh).”