‘Physical Singularity’ by Ren Hang & Lu Yang
During my Shanghai days, I got to know the young female Chinese artist Lu Yang (in part I dislike the fact I just introduced her like that with such specific cultural context, it somewhat goes against my research)…I should define more by practice than place saying the young, emerging digital artist Lu Yang. Room for discussion here. Anyway, she’s always shown such strength in the development of her video and image-based digital artistic practice with a distinct technological edge of the body-medical, explanatory-pictorial, scientific-digital and philosophical-spiritual. I’ve written about her work many times before on here.
Recently, she’s been getting a lot of attention…including being photographed by Mario Testino for Vogue China (she’s on the far left) and selected for the current show ‘Global Photo Collaborations’ by Vice Japan at the Diesel Art Gallery in Shibuya, Tokyo, where she collaborated with photographer Ren Hang, displayed alongside 27 other artists. The series of works – ‘Physical Singularity’ – I feel really exemplifies her current practice, also building on her recently released abstract, fine art-graphic novel-animated film ‘UterusMan’, all of which are shown below.
She is one of only a few artists I know that are embracing digital technologies – using them as a tool with no fear. Collaboration is key to her practice, whether it be with illustrators, Manga artists, musicians or scientists…and exploration of her subject matter vital in building a knowing, an inner sense that feeds instinctively into her practice. For the last two years, I think I’ve said she’s one artist to definitely watch…well, let’s keep on watching…no stopping her in 2014.
