Chinese artist Yao Lu, one of the key figures introducing contemporary Chinese photography to the world, opened an exhibiton Tuesday at the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art. 'We have been trying to bring the artist to Turkey for four years and finally found a chance to exhibit her work,' says the curator of the exhibition
 The exhibition includes 31 pieces that combine classical and contemporary art. |
Famous Chinese artist Yao Lu opened an exhibition at the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday.
Curator of the exhibition Engin Özendeş said at the exhibition’s opening that she had been an admirer of the artist for years. “Lu is one of the world’s most important artists, thanks to his method of combining features of classical and contemporary art.”
Özendeş said the artist used a poetic artistic discourse to analyze and understand people, revealing differences in a variety of global cultures. Lu’s photographic style is very different, she said.
Özendeş said she had been trying to bring the artist to Turkey for four years. “We finally found a chance to open the exhibition and brought his works to Turkey with a sense of urgency. The exhibition was originally planned to feature 20 artworks, but Lu was so excited that he added 11 previously unseen photos to the exhibition.”
China’s construction sites, the symbols of a developing country, have been productive backdrops for Lu. “By digitally adding pagodas, houses, boats and interesting trees onto the photos he took at these sites he produces meticulously created, new landscapes. He creates different worlds by combining real and fictional images. Ancient Chinese painting traditions are poetic like the ones we see in Lu’s photos,” Özendeş said.
Rarely shown in the West
One of the key figures introducing contemporary Chinese photography to the world, Lu is an emerging Chinese artist and photography teacher at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. His work has been exhibited in numerous festivals and collective exhibitions around China, including the Lianzhou International Photo Festival in 2007, the New China Occidentalism – China Contemporary Art show in Beijing in 2006 and the Pingyao International Photography Festival in 2004. However, his work has rarely been shown in the West, except at the Fotofest International in Houston in 2008 and at the “Space and Transportation” exhibition in Graz, in Austria, in 1997.
Lu said Beijing and Istanbul were similar in terms of their development of modern arts and their long cultural histories.
Lu said he was very excited to be opening an exhibition in a big museum in Istanbul. “Istanbul is a city of both history and modernism. It is magnificent that it has Hagia Sophia and Sultanahmet. I admire this city. The art of photography is the most popular modern art in China because of the reason that photography is the easiest way to express yourself.”
Born in 1967, Lu is renowned for his photographs of mounds of garbage covered in green protective nets which he assembles and reworks by computer to create bucolic images of mountain landscapes, shrouded in mist, inspired by traditional Chinese paintings. Lying somewhere between painting and photography, between the past and the present, Lu's work speaks of the radical mutations affecting nature in China as is it subjected to rampant urbanization and the ecological threats that endanger the environment.
Winner of the annual 2008 BMW Paris Photo Prize, an international reference point in its support of contemporary photography, Lu’s exhibition “Yao Lu's New Landscapes” comprises 31 works, 11 of which were created in 2010 exclusively for the new exhibition.
The exhibition will run through May 22.
Curator of the exhibition Engin Özendeş said at the exhibition’s opening that she had been an admirer of the artist for years. “Lu is one of the world’s most important artists, thanks to his method of combining features of classical and contemporary art.”
Özendeş said the artist used a poetic artistic discourse to analyze and understand people, revealing differences in a variety of global cultures. Lu’s photographic style is very different, she said.
Özendeş said she had been trying to bring the artist to Turkey for four years. “We finally found a chance to open the exhibition and brought his works to Turkey with a sense of urgency. The exhibition was originally planned to feature 20 artworks, but Lu was so excited that he added 11 previously unseen photos to the exhibition.”
China’s construction sites, the symbols of a developing country, have been productive backdrops for Lu. “By digitally adding pagodas, houses, boats and interesting trees onto the photos he took at these sites he produces meticulously created, new landscapes. He creates different worlds by combining real and fictional images. Ancient Chinese painting traditions are poetic like the ones we see in Lu’s photos,” Özendeş said.
Rarely shown in the West
One of the key figures introducing contemporary Chinese photography to the world, Lu is an emerging Chinese artist and photography teacher at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. His work has been exhibited in numerous festivals and collective exhibitions around China, including the Lianzhou International Photo Festival in 2007, the New China Occidentalism – China Contemporary Art show in Beijing in 2006 and the Pingyao International Photography Festival in 2004. However, his work has rarely been shown in the West, except at the Fotofest International in Houston in 2008 and at the “Space and Transportation” exhibition in Graz, in Austria, in 1997.
Lu said Beijing and Istanbul were similar in terms of their development of modern arts and their long cultural histories.
Lu said he was very excited to be opening an exhibition in a big museum in Istanbul. “Istanbul is a city of both history and modernism. It is magnificent that it has Hagia Sophia and Sultanahmet. I admire this city. The art of photography is the most popular modern art in China because of the reason that photography is the easiest way to express yourself.”
Born in 1967, Lu is renowned for his photographs of mounds of garbage covered in green protective nets which he assembles and reworks by computer to create bucolic images of mountain landscapes, shrouded in mist, inspired by traditional Chinese paintings. Lying somewhere between painting and photography, between the past and the present, Lu's work speaks of the radical mutations affecting nature in China as is it subjected to rampant urbanization and the ecological threats that endanger the environment.
Winner of the annual 2008 BMW Paris Photo Prize, an international reference point in its support of contemporary photography, Lu’s exhibition “Yao Lu's New Landscapes” comprises 31 works, 11 of which were created in 2010 exclusively for the new exhibition.
The exhibition will run through May 22.
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