Yang Yongliang　Time Immemorial

Time Immemorial

Photograph is a medium of instant moments. Before digital images had replaced traditional films, a photograph was used to be a solid object, a proof one can obtain from the passing of time. It freezes a unique moment in the form of a negative film, even though the moment will one day extend beyond the reach of memory. Time Immemorial, a series founded in 2016, was made in great respect towards the abandoned histories in photographs.

Time Immemorial breaks a new ground in presenting digital images, where the artist transforms computer images and develops them onto 8 x 10 negative films. This concept of minimalist reduction came along during a journey to Japan, where Yang studied traditions and craftsmanship originated from ancient China yet better preserved in present day’s Japan. The series can be presented as a negative film lit by a light box as well as giclee prints on Japanese-style mounted hanging scrolls.

Up until 2016, it has been a full decade since Yang created digital Shan Shui—replacing traditional Chinese brush and ink with images of modern buildings in landscapes. Throughout years of practice, the artist has photographed around the world and his skills in digital painting became unconquerably exquisite. Yet Yang had never stopped seeking innovative methods to enrich and variegate his language.

1980 Born in Shanghai, China
2003 B.A. Visual Communication, China Academy of Art, Shanghai, China
Present Lives and works in Shanghai, China

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2016 Time Immemorial, Shibunkaku/ Shibunkaku Ginza/ Shibunkaku Fukuoka
2016 Fall into Oblivion, Pearl Lam Galleries, Singapore
2015 YAN, Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai, China
2015 FT5 Review with Yang Yongliang Film Screening, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan
2013 The Moonlight, Galerie Paris-Beijing, Paris, France
2012 The Moonlight, Magda Danysz Galleries, Shanghai, China
2011 The Peach Blossom Colony, Galerie Paris-Beijing, Beijing, China
2010 Views from China: Yang Yongliang and the Modern Metropolis, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, USA
2010 Artistic Conception: Landscape, My Humble House, Taipei, Taiwan
2010 Yang Yongliang Solo, Melbourne Intercultural Fine Art, Melbourne, Australia
2009 City of Phantom Visions, OFOTO Gallery, Shanghai, China
2006 Phantom Landscape, OFOTO Gallery, Shanghai, China

Selected Group Exhibitions
2015 Prix Pictet Award Exhibition, Musée d’Art Moderne da la Ville, Paris, France
2015 Ink Remix: Contemporary Art from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, Canberra Museum and Gallery, Canberra, Australia
2015 China 8–Contemporary Art from China, für Kunst und Kulture e.V., Bonn, Germany
2015 State of Play, White Rabbit Gallery, Sydney, Australia
2015 2050. A Brief History of the Future, Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium; The Louvre, Paris, France
2015 Humanistic Nature and Society–An Insight into the Future, 56th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, Palazzo Flangini, Venice, Italy
2014 The 5th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan
2014 The 4th Singapore International Photography Festival, Singapore ArtScience Museum, Singapore
2014 Hohe Berge, fließendes, Chinesischen Kulturezentrum Berlin (Chinese Cultural Center Berlin), Berlin, Germany
2013 Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, USA
2013 Space–time, The 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
2013 Landmark: The Fields of Photography, Somerset House, London, UK
2012 Printed Image in China 8th–21st Century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, USA
2011 Metropolis/City Life in the Urban Age, Noorderlicht International Photo Festival, Groningen, the Netherlands
2011 Shan Shui–poetry without sound?, Chinese contemporary landscapes from the Sigg Collection, Kunstmuseum Lucerne, Switzerland
2009 The 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale, Thessaloniki, Greece
2009 Discovery Award, 40th Anniversary of the Rencontres d’Arles, Arles, France
2007 Art Now 2007, Danwon Art Festival, Gyeonggido Museum of Modern Art, Ansan, Korea

Collections
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA / Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA / San Francisco Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, USA / The British Museum, London, UK / The Rare Books Department of the National Library of France, Paris, France / Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia / The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia / M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong, China / Arendt & Medernach Art Collection, Luxembourg / DSL Collection, Paris, France / Franks-Suss Collection, London, UK / PAE ART Collection, Switzerland / AiLing Foundation, Shanghai, China / Deutsche Bank, Hong Kong, China and others