Art Within Reach

Artist / Yang Xinguang

Yang Xinguang was born in 1980 in Hunan, China. He received his BA in Sculpture from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2007. He currently lives and works in Beijing. Yang Xinguang's work often employs natural materials, like plants and soil, which are intertwined, superimposed, and juxtaposed with industrial elements. In his practice, vines, branches, mud, and rocks reverse their roles as objects and, instead, invade and subvert the narrative of modernity with their subjectivity.

He explores the special status of natural objects amid the living environment of human beings and brings new perspectives and contexts to the relationship between the natural and the artificial in a humorous way.

Besides the use of natural materials throughout the works, another remarkable feature is its extensive use of industrial materials, including aluminum-plastic panels, barbed wire, stainless steel, and automotive rubber inner tubes, among others. The Hollow Cube stands in a more rational, architectural posture, despite the mix of real and artificial twigs of varying sizes inserted into the structures.

The word "bad" in the Bad Soil implies the artist’s intention to extract soil from the objective natural state, endowing it with humanistic value so that it can be involved in the human-oriented moral system and form an antagonistic relationship between the personalized nature objects and human beings. Most of the main exhibition hall is occupied by the soil, outlined by meticulously made steel borderlines, leaving some walking space around and in between for the audience. For Yang Xinguang, the soil is unpretentious and acts as the real world's foundation. At a time when humans have become accustomed to dwelling in the virtual world, the soil still limits us, as the subject roaming boundlessly in the imagination, back to the original place of reality.

Over the last few years, Yang Xinguang has always taken "soil" as his starting point. Using natural materials like twigs, leaves, and foxtails that can be found "above the soil", it maintains the internal logic that runs throughout the artist’s creative process, one in which he sets out to explore the changes and evolution of the form according to the order of nature. One of Yang Xinguang’s recent experiments includes spraying acrylic paint onto dead plants and withered leaves, during which the natural quality of the vegetation is gradually replaced by a social quality brought by the various bright and artificial colors, ranging from iridescent green, yellow, and copper to pastel green, violet and blue. As a result, nature is absorbed into the chain of production.

In the Winds of Spring series, the soil becomes the painting itself in its most original state and condenses the dynamic force. The soil leaves the ground and becomes paintings — he paints deep slices of soil and also depicts the surface of the soil where animals crawl and leave sinuous traces. They became a sort of ecological evidence of the coexistence of known and unknown. The artist views the soil as the naked truth against a virtual world of smooth and clean. The soil is the place where all activities will leave a materialized memory.

Yang Xinguang's works in recent years have continued the use of natural objects and a relaxed attitude towards nature. Natural materials and industrial materials are intertwined, overlapped, and juxtaposed by the artist, becoming a sort of abstract portrayal of the contemporary landscape: In his work, whether grass or soil, are living subjects equal to human beings, they invade and subvert the narrative logic of the modernized development view in their gestures in reverse. The "weed legion" is assembled in the center of the exhibition hall. These plant sculptures are Yang Xinguang's latest Warriors series, standing in various shapes and postures, like living individuals of all sorts. The expansion of modern cities has domesticated the plants from wildness to homogenized landscapes. In contrast, in Yang Xinguang's view, those active and unrecognized weeds at the edge of the city have experienced an exclusion history.

Exhibitions

Yang’s works have been featured in the Wuhan Biennale (2022), the 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012), the 1st Monte Video Biennial (2012), CAFAM Biennale (2011), etc. His recent group exhibitions took place at Artron Art Centre (Shenzhen), Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing), He Art Museum (Guangzhou), Asian Culture Center (Korea), Ullens Center for Contemporary Art Dune (Beidaihe), OCT Contemporary Art Terminal Xi’an (Xi’an), Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai), Nazionale D’arte Moderna E Contemporanea (Italy), The National Gallery of Georgia (Georgia), White Rabbit Museum (Australia), Frac des Pays de la Loire (France), Singapore Art Museum (Singapore), Lehmbruck Museum (Germany) and so on.

Collections

Yang’s works have been collected by Fosun Art Foundation (Shanghai), Long Museum (Shanghai), M+ (Hong Kong), Kadist Art Foundation (Paris and San Francisco), FRAC des Pays de la Loire (Nantes), 33 Contemporary Art Center (Guangzhou), Shanghai Museum of Glass (Shanghai), De Heus Collection (Netherland), G Museum (Nanjing), White Rabbit Museum (Australia), DSL Collection (France) etc.

Awards

He won the Chinese Contemporary Art Golden Palm (2010) and the Nomination Award in Wu Zuoren Art Awards (2010) and was nominated for the HUGO BOSS Asia Prize (2015), the Award of Art China (2014), the 2nd Huayu Youth Award (2014), and the Signature Art Prize (2011).

This article is sourced from Beijing Commune official website.