Yang Maoyuan's Work. Courtesy HdM GALLERY, Beijing.
'The nature of things takes away the attention and novelty of the familiar, and I want to reserve more energy to face new incentives.'
—Yang Maoyuan
Yang Maoyuan is a Chinese contemporary artist producing sculptures, installations, drawings and paintings. He is principally interested in the combination and transformation of different aesthetic genres, often mixing western and eastern objects or forms and approaching one with the other's perspective. Fond of quoting freely from art history, Yang frequently stirs his audience to come to grips with their own certainties by fundamentally altering both the context of famous icons and the manner in which they are perceived. This often results in idiosyncratic pieces that are both humorous and meditative. Eschewing the application of any overarching 'concept', Yang Maoyuan's artistic practice consists of practical experiments that are conducive to more profound questions.
Yang Maoyuan's Work. Courtesy HdM GALLERY, Beijing.
About 1600 years after the word 'wind' appeared, the nomenclature 'scenery' appeared as a single word. The original meanings of 'wind' and 'scenery' are natural phenomena. 'Wind' means flowing air and the Chinese word for 'scenery' means sunlight. 'Landscape' in Chinese is the light-reflecting surface of the 'object' and its shadow. No matter how much the shadowy part of the surface obeys simple optical laws, its appearance is still elusive for us. Shadow is a part of light, which appears and disappears concomitantly with light. On one hand, 'Double Landscape' refers to the dual relationship between light and shadow (the yin and yang relationship of things), and on the other hand, it also implies the artist's inclusiveness in viewing things. Double Landscape will include two important new series: Stone Feet and Timeless Era. In the Stone Feet series, the clumsy feet carrying 'stones' of various shapes 'falling from the sky' easily remind the audience of classic images such as gods carrying planets in European mythology. The impossible encounter with 'Qi Shi' has become an artificial romance, which gives people a strong and direct feeling; at the same time, this 'dual nature' also emphasizes the 'random purpose' that has always existed in Yang Maoyuan's style; he created a surreal 'landscape' in a real way. If Stone Feet and previous works with a 'voice' involve discussions between different 'spaces' and 'geography', then Timeless Era is more a kind of penetrating meditation about the concept of time, in which the smiling faces that at first glance make people laugh are actually isomorphic faces that have been passed down unconsciously in every era and region in the past. When human beings envisage and express the world, the 'things' that can be handed down from different eras are the products of similarities and timeless characteristics. Timeless Era is not a specific dynasty within a chronology, nor is it a specific concept of time; In Yang Maoyuan's view, the eternity of ancient times, of modern times, of contemporary times, and the future are the ever-growing components of a timeless era.
About the artist
Born in Dalian in 1966, Yang Maoyuan graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and currently lives and works in Beijing. He has been exhibited in important institutions within China and abroad, representing China at the 54th Venice Biennale and participating in exhibitions at the National Gallery in Warsaw, Poland, Pompidou Centre in Paris, Dresden Art Center, Hunan Provincial Museum, Today Art Museum, Martin Gropius Museum, Ordos Art Museum, VILLA BREDA Museum in Padua, Medici Ricardi Palace, etc.
About the exhibition
Dates: 18 June-1 August, 2022
Venue: HdM Gallery, Beijing
Courtesy of HdM Gallery.
