yang yongliang

impermanence of all things

online group EXHIBITION

February.24 - JUNE.26.2022

Yang Yongliang produces photographic and video montages inspired by traditional Chinese shanshui landscapes. They invite contemplation. From afar, they look as though they are untouched scenes of mountains and rivers, drawn in Indian ink. Up close, the illusion unfolds. The natural landscape makes way for a resolutely urban landscape. The mountainous rocks have become shapeless aggregates of skyscrapers scattered with electricity pylons, in the middle of which flows a dense road of traffic.

To create his digital landscapes, the Chinese artist searches into his digital archives. For the past fifteen years, he has been visiting construction sites (in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, etc.) where he takes black and white pictures of various elements then classified by categories: cables, electric towers, telephone poles, bridges, etc. His works are thus composed of hundreds of images and details that build a landscape evocative of shanshui.

“My [artistic] approach is to put myself into unfamiliar situations, whether it’s a new environment, new media or through a new platform. As long as there’re something I’m unfamiliar with, I keep myself engaged in the discovery.”

- Yang Yongliang, Interview for Metal Magazine

While following a certain continuity of Chinese artistic heritage, Yang Yongliang marks a deep break with tradition. The eternity of the shanshui landscapes has vanished. Man's harmonious relationship with nature has deteriorated. Traditional pictorial techniques are overtaken by digital tools. While traditionally artists expressed their feelings and appreciation for nature through landscape painting, Yang Yongliang's digital shanshui denounce excessive urbanization and environmental destruction, and question our contemporary ideology of nature.