The Fifth Night, 2010
ink jet print, edition of 50
56 x 37.3 cm (image size)
unframed
This Artist Edition was created by Yang Fudong specifically for the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Artist Edition program in relation to his solo exhibition Yang Fudong: Fifth Night which was on view at the Gallery from May 12 to September 3, 2012.
Yang Fudong is a Shanghai-based artist who produces dramatic and highly stylized films and installations. His works, often described as dream-like, engage the cinematic traditions of both Hollywood and experimental film while referencing the changing cultural conditions of contemporary China.
In Fifth Night, a single scene has been filmed simultaneously from seven different vantage points to create an open-ended narrative. The scene depicts a number of figures who wander and cross paths in a dark city square. This disjunctive narrative offers a sense of dislocation that is reflective of the new China as well as a rapidly changing contemporary society, and explores the tension between traditional ideologies/values, and recent modernization. Described by the artist as “a midnight theatre for an audience of one,” the film explores internal dialogues and emotive states during this “loneliest hour of the night.” For his Artist Edition, Yang Fudong selected a single image from his seven-screen installation that captures some of the mysterious and poetic beauty of his film: a young woman in a floral dress gazes into the distance while a young man stands behind her, his gaze fixed on her.
Yang Fudong graduated from the China Academy of Fine Art, Hangzhou, in 1995 and is one of the most significant and influential artists to emerge in China since the 1990s. He has exhibited at the Venice Biennale (2003, 2007), Documenta XI, Kassel (2002), Shanghai Biennale (2002), Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2005) and Asia Pacific Triennial, Brisbane (2006.) His work also is in numerous public collections including Museum of Modern Art, New York and Centre Pompidou, Paris.