THIS FIRST MIDCAREER SURVEY OF THE WORK OF YANG FUDONG PRESENTS FILMS, MULTICHANNEL VIDEOS, AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY A LEADING CHINESE ARTIST AND FILMMAKER. THE ARTIST EXPLORES A GENERATION COMING OF AGE IN A TIME OF UNPRECEDENTED CHANGE IN CHINA.

  Download a PDF version of this press release

  閱讀本篇新聞稿之中文版本

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 Ms. 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 InfluencesIn 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 ProgramsTuesday, 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 MaterialsYang 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

SupportYang 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/PFAFounded 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 InformationBAM/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

# # #

加州大學伯克利分校美術館和太平洋電影文獻庫呈獻
楊福東 陌生天堂，作品1993-2013年
2013年8月21日- 12月8日

Yang Fudong: Mrs. Huang at M Last Night, 2006; black-and-white C-print; 47¼ × 70⅞ in.; courtesy of the artist, Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris/New York, and ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai.楊福東首次作品回顧展，展出作品包括這位中國先鋒藝術家、導演的電影，多通道視頻及攝影作品。該藝術家探索和表現了置身於空前變革時代浪潮中的新一代中國年輕人 。

  下載PDF版本新聞稿

加州伯克利 –– 加州大學伯克利分校美術館和太平洋電影文獻庫(BAM/PFA)榮譽呈獻，楊福東：陌生天堂，1993-2013年作品展，中國當代最受矚目的藝術家、導演的首次作品回顧展。這次展覽由BAM/PFA兼職高級策展人菲利普•皮羅特(Philippe Pirotte)策劃，BAM/PFA及瑞士蘇黎世美術館協辦，特別展出該藝術家二十年藝術生涯中所創作的電影，多通道視頻裝置藝術，及攝影作品。配合畫廊展覽，我們將舉辦楊福東的光影映象，放映一系列特別影片，包括楊福東導演的單路影片和他親自挑選的歷史經典及當代影片。 生於1971年，在北京長大的楊福東，最初在杭州學習繪畫，後來將他的研究興趣轉向攝影。他的許多視像作品深受三四十年代中國的傳統繪畫及電影風格影響，時間凝固的長鏡頭，支離破碎的故事敘述和錯綜複雜的人物關係和故事情節給他的作品蒙上一種超凡脫俗、似真似幻的朦朧感。這些作品表現了像他一樣在文革中或文革後出生的一代年輕人的夢想和困惑，他們在急劇變化的現代中國社會中掙扎著，尋找自己的容身之處。

2002年，楊福東的第一部電影《陌生天堂》，風格近似吉姆·賈木許(Jim Jarmusch)的電影《天堂陌影》(Stranger Than Paradise)，在第11屆卡塞爾文獻展(Documenta XI)公演，令其在國際藝術界聲名鵲起。影片開篇是一段對中國山水畫構圖的沈思，接著這部心理劇的情節圍繞著柱子，一個住在杭州，感覺身體不適的年輕人展開。他的病情，實際上歸咎於在中國社會中生活所感到的不滿和煩擾。與黑色電影相關的主題在包括這部電影在內的楊福東的許多電影作品內扮演了重要角色：對過去的沈溺和對未來的焦慮，悲觀厭世和憤世嫉俗之間的張力，記憶與遺忘；而富有光澤的黑白電影畫面更強化了他的電影與黑色電影的聯繫。

和柱子一樣，楊福東作品的主人公常常是他的同齡人。周蕾在這次展覽的圖錄里寫道：“他們通常是在這個古老的國家裡生活著的年輕人，這些年輕人，換句話來說，在繼承悠久文化歷史的同時，也體驗著新的生活”。楊福東將這些角色置於當代中國城市消費主義盛行的背景下，展現他們心中的理想與不安，探索在不停變幻的社會當中的個人的尊嚴。這在他的攝影作品系列別擔心，明天會更好(2000)及黃小姐在M的晚上(2006)中表現得尤為明顯。二者都刻畫了一個盛裝打扮的女子，被愛慕者們簇擁著，在酒店房間裡或是在夜色裡，似乎享受著富裕的物質生活的寵溺。照片中人物狡黠的眼神使觀眾對實際的場景和故事情節感到捉摸不透。

他的其他作品涉及中國文人畫傳統，該傳統常常與為了追求精神自由而隱居山林、沈浸在自然美景中的文人、知識分子相關聯。情式物語之四季青 (2000)，一系列年輕男女凝視著微型盆栽的攝影作品，將反思中國傳統園藝這一重要課題遷移到了現代公寓內家庭生活的語境中。在早期的錄像裝置藝術今晚的月亮(2000)，穿著泳衣和女裝的男人們混雜在東方風情園林里。影片沿著多條故事線在各個電視機屏幕和一個大的放映屏上分別展開，營造出一種模稜兩可的氛圍。而國際飯店 (2010)，楊福東近期拍攝的身著泳衣的美女們在藝術裝飾酒店泳池內暢遊的一系列作品，則觸碰了關於女性內在的問題。

楊福東近期較受矚目的影片裝置越來越多地注重反映影片的製作過程，並且採用了多通道電影的拍攝手法開啓空間上的自由度，他稱之為現代版的中國手卷 。

配合展覽楊福東：陌生天堂將推出內含皮羅特(Pirotte)，秦思源(Colin Chinnery), 何銳安(Ho Rui An)，及周蕾(Rey Chow)撰寫的介紹文字的圖錄。楊福東將親臨伯克利參與兩項公開活動：8月22日的與皮羅特(Pirotte)的對話及8月22日的陌生天堂放映的介紹活動。

電影：楊福東的光影映像配合展覽楊福東：陌生天堂，作品1993-2013，BAM/PFA 為大家帶來了這位藝術家、導演的兩部電影作品，以及一系列曾影響過他的影片。開幕影片為這位導演的處女作，《陌生天堂》，我們也很榮幸地請到楊福東，及展覽策劃人菲利普•皮羅特(Philippe Pirotte)親自蒞臨太平洋電影文獻庫影院。該系列其餘影片將在九月份陸續放映。請日後於本網站查詢完整時刻表。

2013年8月22日，週四，7PM 陌生天堂（楊福東，中國，2002） 楊福東對話展覽策劃人菲利普•皮羅特(Philippe Pirotte) 用黑白膠片唯美拍攝、剪輯，這部寧靜舒婉的傑作少有地向觀眾展示了生活在1997年的中國的情景。楊福東的首部電影是一部動人的心理劇，情節圍繞著一名杭州年輕男子的日常活動展開。柱子被他的慾望所困擾 -- 已經訂婚的他，被與其他女子發生浪漫關係的念頭誘惑著。他莫名感覺身體上有些不適，但醫生診斷他並沒得病。可以說，他感到不適的真正原因也許來自更深層次的不滿；跟許多同時代年輕人一樣，柱子在自己的生活里，卻感到一種陌生的無歸屬感。(片長74分鐘)
PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley
門票 $5.50–10.50

公開活動2013年8月20日，週二，6PM 楊福東對話展覽策劃人菲利普•皮羅特(Philippe Pirotte) 加入藝術家楊福東與BAM/PFA兼職高級策展人菲利普•皮羅特(Philippe Pirotte)的對話，聚焦電影中的主人公：和楊福東一樣，在新中國急劇變化的社會中成長的一代中國年輕人。他們這一代人，有著怎樣的夢想和焦慮？為了在這個不斷變更的社會上保有個人的尊嚴，他們如何掙扎和奮鬥？少數知識分子（楊福東使用的稱謂）要怎樣去追求精神上的自由？
免費入場

2013年9月20日，週五，時間待定 對話胡&#26