“Theater of Crossroads” Exhibition
Gallery 456 in Chinese-American Arts Council
This event has ended.
Curated by Rui Tang
Chinese America Arts Council / Gallery 456 presents Theater of Crossroads, the first solo exhibition by Beijing-based artist Yuanyuan Yang in New York. The exhibition showcases photographs and a performance video from four different projects—10 Days in Kraków (2014), At the Place of Crossed Sights (2015-2016), Dalian Mirage (2017-ongoing), and Yang’s current research about a group of pioneering female performers of the Chinese diaspora. Interlacing the existing stories and historical events embedded in the works from these projects, the exhibition forms a cohesive narrative oriented around migration and war in the 20th century. Yuanyuan Yang highlights five prominent figures in relation to the aforementioned projects and, through these characters, the exhibition gives voice to individual stories and re-contextualizes the complex history of diaspora and cultural circulations.
These highly idiosyncratic and intricate narratives are embodied in each project in this exhibition. In a theater play format, Dalian Mirage stages stories of various figures from different eras in the context of the Sino-Japanese War and the colonial history of Dalian, China under Japanese occupation between 1905-1945. The work reveals the forgotten homecoming of displaced Japanese in China. By narrating stories of several photographers in Porto Alegre, Brazil in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the artist’s personal encounters with them, At the Place of Crossed Sights explores the history of European and Chinese immigration to Brazil. The artist’s newly developed and ongoing project traces a lost 1939 film by female Chinese-American filmmaker Esther Eng. By assembling surviving fragments of the Chinese diaspora, Yang intends to unveil the backstage world of female performers in the Cantonese opera, film and entertainment scene between 1914-1970. Collectively, Theater of Crossroads sheds light on marginalized groups under the impact of colonial policy and identity politics.
The exhibition is organized by Rui Tang and supported by AIKE Gallery.
Yuanyuan Yang (b.1989, lives and works in Beijing)
Yang received a BA (hons) in photography at London College of Communications, University of the Arts London in 2013. Her work has been exhibited and published internationally. Yang is the 2018 artist-in-residence at Art in General in New York, supported by Asian Cultural Council. In 2016 She was shortlisted for the Huayu Youth Award. In 2015 she was shortlisted for Author Book Award at Rencontres d’Arles and Best Photobook of 2015 at Fototbookfestival in Kassel, and she received second prize at Gucang Dummy Award Martin Parr Edition in the same year. She was shortlisted for the first round selection at Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2014; she was one of the UK winners of the Magenta: Flash Forward award in 2013; she received the Tierney Fellowship at Three Shadows Photography Award in 2012, and she received third prize at the Bar-Tur Award in 2011.
Media
Schedule
from August 31, 2018 to September 28, 2018
Opening Reception on 2018-08-31 from 18:00 to 20:00