SOCIÉTÉ

Lu Yang

Video still, Lu Yang, DOKU the self, 2022, 34 min 6 sec, Edition of 6 + 2 AP

Video still, Lu Yang, DOKU the self, 2022, 34 min 6 sec, Edition of 6 + 2 AP


Lu Yang (b. 1984, Shanghai) lives and works in Shanghai and Tokyo. Yang's solo exhibition will open at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris in April 2024 as part of the museum's exhibition series "Open Space." He was selected Artist of the Year 2022 by Deutsche Bank. Yang's work is currently on view in the exhibition WORLDBUILDING, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist at Julia Stoschek collection in Düsseldorf, which was also exhibited at the Centre Pompidou-Metz. Lu Yang has additionally been the subject of solo exhibitions at international institutions such as Kunsthalle Basel, Basel; Palais Populaire, Berlin; ARoS Museum, Aarhus; M Woods, Beijing; MOCA Cleveland; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo and Kunstpalais Erlangen. He has participated in group exhibitions at The Milk of Dreams at La Biennale di Venezia; Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai; CCA Tel Aviv; ICA, London; Muzeum Sztuki, Poland; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; and Fridericianum, Kassel among others.

Installation view, Doku: Digital Reincarnation, Times Square Arts, Times Square, New York, 2023

Installation view, Doku: Digital Reincarnation, Times Square Arts, Times Square, New York, 2023

Every night in December, Lu Yang takes over Times Square with a post-human dance party. Lu Yang’s elaborately outfitted and eerily lifelike avatars in Doku: Digital Reincarnation are born out of the artist’s distinct and ongoing scientific and philosophical inquiries — an interdisciplinary blend of Buddhism, neuroscience, psychology and modern technology.

The shape-shifting protagonist in this five-channel work is Doku; the name is derived from the phrase “Dokusho Dokushi,” which translates to “We are born alone, and we die alone,” and references a canonical Buddhist scripture. While sharing Lu Yang’s facial expressions and features, the nonbinary character was generated from an amalgamation of various dancers and musicians, and created in collaboration with a team of scientists, 3D animators, and digital technicians using the latest in motion capture technology. Through this repeated incarnation, the artist is reborn as an ever-present avatar, endowed with talents surpassing physical limitations — uniting ancient concepts such as reincarnation with the latest technological innovations.

Installation view, Doku: Digital Reincarnation, Times Square Arts, Times Square, New York, 2023

Installation view, Doku: Digital Reincarnation, Times Square Arts, Times Square, New York, 2023

Installation view, Doku: Digital Reincarnation, Times Square Arts, Times Square, New York, 2023

Installation view, Doku: Digital Reincarnation, Times Square Arts, Times Square, New York, 2023

Installation view, Doku: Digital Reincarnation, Times Square Arts, Times Square, New York, 2023

Installation view, Doku: Digital Reincarnation, Times Square Arts, Times Square, New York, 2023

Installation view, Doku: Digital Reincarnation, Times Square Arts, Times Square, New York, 2023

Installation view, Doku: Digital Reincarnation, Times Square Arts, Times Square, New York, 2023

Installation view, Doku: Digital Reincarnation, Times Square Arts, Times Square, New York, 2023

Installation view, Doku: Digital Reincarnation, Times Square Arts, Times Square, New York, 2023

Installation view, Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year, DOKU Experience Center, MUDEC, Milan, 2023

Installation view, Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year, DOKU Experience Center, MUDEC, Milan, 2023

From 14 September to 22 October 2023, MUDEC hosts the new exhibition of “Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year”: on display DOKU Experience Center by LuYang, who in 2022 won the prestigious Deutsche Bank international prize dedicated to art Contemporary.

Among the most interesting contemporary young Asian artists, LuYang is inspired by science fiction, manga, video games and techno culture, exploring hypermodern technologies and contents that concern posthumanism and transhumanism. His reflection blurs the distinctions between real and digital body and finds expression above all in dance, a recurring theme in his practice.

The DOKU Experience Center exhibition is entirely dedicated to these themes and, in particular, to the virtual reincarnation of the artist – i.e. Dokusho Dokushi, or DOKU for short – into a gender-neutral avatar, a hyper-realistic figure whose face is modeled on his but can take different likeness.

The exhibition brings together and for the first time the six different avatars created by LuYang – Human, Heaven, Asura, Animal, Hungry Ghost, Hell – who embody the six realms of rebirth of Samsara, the karmic wheel of life which symbolizes the eternal cycle of birth, death and reincarnation.

Installation view, Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year, DOKU Experience Center, MUDEC, Milan, 2023

Installation view, Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year, DOKU Experience Center, MUDEC, Milan, 2023

Installation view, Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year, DOKU Experience Center, MUDEC, Milan, 2023

Installation view, Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year, DOKU Experience Center, MUDEC, Milan, 2023

Installation view, Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year, DOKU Experience Center, MUDEC, Milan, 2023

Installation view, Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year, DOKU Experience Center, MUDEC, Milan, 2023

Installation view, Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year, DOKU Experience Center, MUDEC, Milan, 2023

Installation view, Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year, DOKU Experience Center, MUDEC, Milan, 2023

Installation view, Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year, DOKU Experience Center, MUDEC, Milan, 2023

Installation view, Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year, DOKU Experience Center, MUDEC, Milan, 2023

HOPE

Museion, Bolzano, 2023

Installation view, HOPE, Museion, Bolzano, 2023

Installation view, HOPE, Museion, Bolzano, 2023

Installation view, WORLDBUILDING. Gaming and Art in the digital age, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, 2023

Installation view, WORLDBUILDING. Gaming and Art in the digital age, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, 2023

Installation view, WORLDBUILDING. Gaming and Art in the digital age, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, 2023

Installation view, WORLDBUILDING. Gaming and Art in the digital age, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, 2023

Installation view, WORLDBUILDING. Gaming and Art in the digital age, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, 2023

Installation view, WORLDBUILDING. Gaming and Art in the digital age, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, 2023

Certainly, this exhibit focuses on an activity worth reckoning with. In 2022, 3.03 billion people—more than a third of the world’s population—played video games. As Hans Ulrich Obrist asserts, this hobby has become “the biggest mass phenomenon of our time. Many people spend hours every day in a parallel world and live a multitude of different lives. Video games are to the twenty-first century what movies were to the twentieth century and novels to the nineteenth century”. Around a hundred years ago, in his book Homo Ludens, the historian Johan Huizinga theorized that play is a basic drive of humankind. Bringing people together in new ways, he contends, play is the source of culture.

More recently, in his book Games: Agency as Art, C. Thi Nguyen argues that games, particularly video games, are a distinct type of art which “let us experience forms of agency we might not have discovered on our own”. As such, gaming has the potential to unleash powerful psychic forces. Video games have proven to be an effective tool for the development of training and strategy. Indeed, scientists have made good use of video games simulating biological systems to speculate on the possible origins and destination of life. Accordingly, video games as a digital art form offer a means for an existential quest beyond the embodied physical world and into the multiverse. By their very nature, they open the potential to imagine and build new worlds.

Several of the featured artists in the exhibit began making work that refers to video games as early as the 1980’s while most of the others were just born around that time. For the works in this show, artists have addressed video games in various ways. Some have adapted their themes and visual style to make videos. Others have modified, hacked, and subverted existing video games. Finally, some have created their own video games. As Hans-Ulrich Obrist writes, “traditionally, video games were created by a small and insular group of people…producing games with a very limited perspective. This is now changing rapidly… Artists are increasingly developing the technical ability to create [their own] virtual worlds of diversity and inclusion”. Through these means, the artists are taking this format beyond pure entertainment value to probe social, political, and aesthetic questions. While video games have been the topic of numerous exhibitions in recent years, most of these highlighted their legitimacy as an artistic medium or focused on aspects of “game art”.


Installation view, Lu Yang DOKU Hong Kong Experience Centre, Oi! Street art space, Hong Kong, 2023

Installation view, Lu Yang DOKU Hong Kong Experience Centre, Oi! Street art space, Hong Kong, 2023

Installation view, Lu Yang DOKU Hong Kong Experience Centre, Oi! Street art space, Hong Kong, 2023

Installation view, Lu Yang DOKU Hong Kong Experience Centre, Oi! Street art space, Hong Kong, 2023

Installation view, Lu Yang DOKU Hong Kong Experience Centre, Oi! Street art space, Hong Kong, 2023

Installation view, Lu Yang DOKU Hong Kong Experience Centre, Oi! Street art space, Hong Kong, 2023

Installation view, Lu Yang DOKU Hong Kong Experience Centre, Oi! Street art space, Hong Kong, 2023

Installation view, Lu Yang DOKU Hong Kong Experience Centre, Oi! Street art space, Hong Kong, 2023

Installation view, Lu Yang DOKU Hong Kong Experience Centre, Oi! Street art space, Hong Kong, 2023

Installation view, Lu Yang DOKU Hong Kong Experience Centre, Oi! Street art space, Hong Kong, 2023

Installation view, Lu Yang DOKU Hong Kong Experience Centre, Oi! Street art space, Hong Kong, 2023

Installation view, Lu Yang DOKU Hong Kong Experience Centre, Oi! Street art space, Hong Kong, 2023

Installation view, Lu Yang DOKU Hong Kong Experience Centre, Oi! Street art space, Hong Kong, 2023

Installation view, Lu Yang DOKU Hong Kong Experience Centre, Oi! Street art space, Hong Kong, 2023

Installation view, LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, 2023

Installation view, LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, 2023

LuYang takes the human as the center point of an investigation that deploys the cultures of anime, Buddhism, digital technology, gaming, Indonesian dance rituals, neuroscience, and sci-fi to mine the mess (and magic) of the human condition. The resulting artworks are engrossing, fantastical, and sometimes grotesque techno-psychedelic videos, installations, and computer games that tackle topics of such magnitude as life, death, reincarnation, or even global destruction. For LuYang Vibratory Field at Kunsthalle Basel, the Shanghai-born artist’s first solo exhibition in Switzerland and one of the most comprehensive presentations of the artist’s production from the last decade, nearly every room will evoke a different cosmos spawned from the videos featured within them.

Installation view, LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, 2023

Installation view, LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, 2023

Installation view, LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, 2023

Installation view, LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, 2023

Installation view, LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, 2023

Installation view, LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, 2023

Installation view, LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, 2023

Installation view, LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, 2023

Installation view, LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, 2023

Installation view, LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, 2023

Installation view, LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, 2023

Installation view, LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, 2023

 
Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Enter the disorientating and darkly humorous worlds created by multimedia artist LuYang for their first UK solo exhibition. Immersed in the cultures of anime, video games and sci-fi, LuYang combines Buddhism, neuroscience and digital technology to investigate the mysteries and mechanics of the human body and mind. The title LuYang NetiNeti incorporates the Sanskrit expression ‘neti neti’, meaning ‘neither this, nor that’. The Main Hall focuses on the artist’s own avatar, DOKU, created using CGI animation and by motion-tracking the movements of dancers. The six versions of DOKU that exist to date correspond to the six paths of Buddhist reincarnation: Hell, Heaven, Hungry Ghost, Animal, Asura and Human. DOKU – Binary conflicts invert illusions is a new video commissioned by Zabludowicz Collection. It features the characters Heaven and Hell engaged in a dance on a yin yang symbol, leading to the formation of a new hybrid DOKU character, the binary god. Presented on a large screen on the altar, DOKU the Self follows a version of LuYang on a passenger aeroplane moving through numerous states of perception. The narrator contemplates the concepts of reincarnation, consciousness, and our understanding of ‘the self’. Our Back Gallery has been transformed into an interactive games arcade, with the ambitious Material World Knight project at its centre. Characters from LuYang’s earlier works appear, accompanying you on a philosophical quest through techno-psychedelic realms. The Middle Gallery screening room presents a selection of LuYang’s key video works, made in collaboration with J-pop idols, music producers and scientists. Entertaining, thought-provoking and sometimes grotesque, LuYang’s fantastic spaces don’t shy away from exploring human mortality and the nature of reality itself.

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

Installation view, LuYang NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2022

 
Artist of the Year 2022, Deutsche Bank, LuYang: Experience Center, PalaisPopulaire, Berlin, 2022

Artist of the Year 2022, Deutsche Bank, LuYang: Experience Center, PalaisPopulaire, Berlin, 2022

In collaboration with experts from the fields of dance, music, philosophy and science, LuYang creates a posthuman metaverse in which identities are fluid. It opens up completely new art experiences that radically question concepts such as cultural identity, body, and gender, but also the perception of reality. This includes the transgression of previous human possibilities—be they intellectual, emotional, or physical—through the use of high tech and the extension of the body as a cyborg or avatar.

The unusual thing about this position is that the posthuman is in the context of Buddhist and Hindu cosmologies. The artist’s projects begin where current scientific and technological thinking intersects with traditional spiritual and philosophical principles. LuYang experiments with the notion that virtual existence can not only extend physical existence, but also replace it in the future with its unlimited possibilities—without binary categories such as natural/artificial or male/female. LuYang contrasts the idea of an identity anchored in the body and in chronological time with multiple identities and realities that know no fixed self but only permanent change.

Lu Yang’s avatars personify this change. They resemble anime characters and superheroes and are have names such as Human, Heaven, Fighter, Animal, Hungry Ghost, and Hell. Each avatar embodies one of the six realms of rebirth of Samsara, the karmic wheel of life that symbolizes the eternal cycle of birth, death, and reincarnation.

DOKU the Self is the first narrative film dedicated to the avatar. It is like a radical visual meditation: in breathtaking images, we can see how DOKU lives and dies in each of these Buddhist worlds,radically freeing itself from the concept of the self and the body.

The exhibition is like a high-tech laboratory that offers also a lookbehind the scenes of technology and the possibility to participate in a video. In addition to DOKU the Self, LuYang’s music video DOKU the Matrix, conceived expressly for the show, and the new series Bardo #1, which shows DOKU with its respective attributes in round mandala compositions, are presented. Engaging, philosophical, and sometimes disturbing, DOKU Experience Centerintroduces us to a way of thinking shaped by new technologies that is at once ancient and spiritual—a mind-expanding experience in the truest sense.

Artist of the Year 2022, Deutsche Bank, LuYang: Experience Center, PalaisPopulaire, Berlin, 2022

Artist of the Year 2022, Deutsche Bank, LuYang: Experience Center, PalaisPopulaire, Berlin, 2022

Artist of the Year 2022, Deutsche Bank, LuYang: Experience Center, PalaisPopulaire, Berlin, 2022

Artist of the Year 2022, Deutsche Bank, LuYang: Experience Center, PalaisPopulaire, Berlin, 2022

Artist of the Year 2022, Deutsche Bank, LuYang: Experience Center, PalaisPopulaire, Berlin, 2022

Artist of the Year 2022, Deutsche Bank, LuYang: Experience Center, PalaisPopulaire, Berlin, 2022

Video still, Lu Yang, DOKU the self, 2022, 34 min 6 sec, Edition of 6 + 2 AP

Video still, Lu Yang, DOKU the self, 2022, 34 min 6 sec, Edition of 6 + 2 AP

Lu Yang, DOKU - Heaven - Bardo #1, 2022, UV Inkjet Print on Aluminum Dibond LED light system, 120 x 120 x 4 cm, 47 x 47 x 1 1/2 in

Lu Yang, DOKU - Heaven - Bardo #1, 2022, UV Inkjet Print on Aluminum Dibond LED light system, 120 × 120 × 4 cm, 47 × 47 × 1 1/2 in

Lu Yang, DOKU - Hell - Bardo #1, 2022, UV Inkjet Print on Aluminum Dibond LED light system, 120 x 120 x 4 cm, 47 x 47 x 1 1/2 in

Lu Yang, DOKU - Hell - Bardo #1, 2022, UV Inkjet Print on Aluminum Dibond LED light system, 120 × 120 × 4 cm, 47 × 47 × 1 1/2 in

Lu Yang, DOKU - Asura - Bardo #1, 2022, UV Inkjet Print on Aluminum Dibond LED light system, 120 x 120 x 4 cm, 47 x 47 x 1 1/2 in

Lu Yang, DOKU - Asura - Bardo #1, 2022, UV Inkjet Print on Aluminum Dibond LED light system, 120 × 120 × 4 cm, 47 × 47 × 1 1/2 in

Lu Yang, DOKU - Hungry Ghost - Bardo #1, 2022, UV Inkjet Print on Aluminum Dibond LED light system, 120 x 120 x 4 cm, 47 x 47 x 1 1/2 in

Lu Yang, DOKU - Hungry Ghost - Bardo #1, 2022, UV Inkjet Print on Aluminum Dibond LED light system, 120 × 120 × 4 cm, 47 × 47 × 1 1/2 in

 

DOKU the self

The Milk of Dreams, 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Cecilia Alemani

Video still, Lu Yang, DOKU the self, 2022, 34 min 6 sec, Edition of 6 + 2 AP

Video still, Lu Yang, DOKU the self, 2022, 34 min 6 sec, Edition of 6 + 2 AP

Lu Yang’s 3D animations and installations adopt strategies taken from science, religion, psychology, neuroscience, medicine, games, pop culture, and music to highlight the biological and material determinants of what it means to be human in the 21st century. In doing so, he opens up fundamental questions about the relationships between the body and consciousness, spirituality and science, technology and the limits of being human. Yang introduces his own body into many of his works, subjecting this proxy to myriad experiments that seem to perpetually stage the multiplication, disintegration, or dissection of the body.

On the occasion of the 59th Venice Biennale: The Milk of Dreams, Lu Yang presents the most recent chapter in his ongoing work DOKU. The character DOKU is a digital shell, a virtual human named after the phrase “Dokusho Dokushi,” meaning “We are born alone, and we die alone.” Yang has been working on the digital assets for this non-binary avatar for over two years and considers the character a reincarnation of himself into a digital parallel universe. Building upon his ongoing interest in the digitization of the human body and mind, not only does Yang’s body provide the template for this virtual human, but his own memories form the core of DOKU’s first narrative film, which is inspired by a sensation of the “overview effect”—a cognitive shift in awareness sparked by observing the world from afar—that the artist experienced while flying during a lightning storm.

Installation view, The Milk of Dreams, 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Photo by Roberto Marossi

Installation view, The Milk of Dreams, 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Photo by Roberto Marossi

Video still, Lu Yang, DOKU the self, 2022, 34 min 6 sec, Edition of 6 + 2 AP

Video still, Lu Yang, DOKU the self, 2022, 34 min 6 sec, Edition of 6 + 2 AP

 
Installation view, False awakening, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen, 2022

Installation view, False awakening, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen, 2022

LuYang's art is a unique crossover of neuroscience and Buddhist philosophy, medical technology and body enhancement, as well as manga aesthetics and fantastical sci-fi. Inspired by social issues derived from these fields, LuYang creates artworks and digital avatars that can be read as commentaries on current identity debates as well as the supposed limits of cultural identity. The artist's claim, however, extends far beyond the realm of fiction - LuYang breaks with established categories of thought such as "real" and "artificial" or "male" and "female" right into his own biography. The question of a "true" biological gender is deliberately put aside in order to create mental freedom and to let creativity come to the fore. This concept is personified by LuYang's digital reincarnation Doku, a gender-neutral avatar who will also play the main role in a new video work created especially for Kunstpalais.

The exhibition False Awakening draws from global gaming culture not only in aethetic terms. Visitors are invited to slip into selected roles from LuYang's repertoire and explore his digital world.

Installation view, False awakening, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen, 2022

Installation view, False awakening, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen, 2022

Installation view, False awakening, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen, 2022

Installation view, False awakening, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen, 2022

Installation view, False awakening, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen, 2022

Installation view, False awakening, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen, 2022

Installation view, False awakening, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen, 2022

Installation view, False awakening, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen, 2022

Installation view, False awakening, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen, 2022

Installation view, False awakening, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen, 2022

 

PUBLICATION

Uterusman

Lu Yang - Société Berlin
 

Electromagnetic Brainology

Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, 2022

Installation view, Electromagnetic Brainology, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, 2022

Installation view, Electromagnetic Brainology, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, 2022

Installation view, Electromagnetic Brainology, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, 2022

Installation view, Electromagnetic Brainology, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, 2022

 
Installation view, Digital Descending, ARoS, Aarhus, 2021

Installation view, Digital Descending, ARoS, Aarhus, 2021

The exhibition Digital Descending at ARoS takes the form of a flashing immersive world made up of sounds, screens, film and a video game, creating a sensuous and hectic digital universe. Visitors move through Lu Yang’s virtual parallel world inhabited by gods and demons, heroes, warriors and cyborgs inspired by universes hailing from the realms of gaming, manga and Eastern religions.

For many people, especially younger people, gaming offers a virtual parallel universe that can seem more interesting, immersive and stimulating than the real world. Lu Yang is very preoccupied with the realms of opportunity unleashed in these parallel worlds. Here you or your digital character can gain superpowers, adopt a range of different roles and zap across time and space, says curator at ARoS Jeanett Stampe.

In the various works featured in the exhibition, the artist’s own genderless avatar appears in multiple versions, including the brand-new hyper-realistic avatar DOKU, which constitutes the main character in the work DOKU - 6 Realms of Reincarnation. Lu Yang calls the avatar a digital reincarnation: DOKU is based on a high-tech face scan of the artist’s own face, capable of reproducing expressions with almost 100 per cent accuracy.

Installation view, Digital Descending, ARoS, Aarhus, 2021

Installation view, Digital Descending, ARoS, Aarhus, 2021

Installation view, Digital Descending, ARoS, Aarhus, 2021

Installation view, Digital Descending, ARoS, Aarhus, 2021

Installation view, Digital Descending, ARoS, Aarhus, 2021

Installation view, Digital Descending, ARoS, Aarhus, 2021

Installation view, Digital Descending, ARoS, Aarhus, 2021

Installation view, Digital Descending, ARoS, Aarhus, 2021

Installation view, Digital Descending, ARoS, Aarhus, 2021

Installation view, Digital Descending, ARoS, Aarhus, 2021

 

Gigant DOKU - LuYang the Destroyer

Performance, Garage Museum, Moscow, 2021

Performance documentation, Gigant DOKU - LuYang the Destroyer, Garage Museum, Moscow, 2021

Performance documentation, Gigant DOKU - LuYang the Destroyer, Garage Museum, Moscow, 2021

Performance documentation, Gigant DOKU - LuYang the Destroyer, Garage Museum, Moscow, 2021

Performance documentation, Gigant DOKU - LuYang the Destroyer, Garage Museum, Moscow, 2021

Performance documentation, Gigant DOKU - LuYang the Destroyer, Garage Museum, Moscow, 2021

Performance documentation, Gigant DOKU - LuYang the Destroyer, Garage Museum, Moscow, 2021

Performance documentation, Gigant DOKU - LuYang the Destroyer, Garage Museum, Moscow, 2021

Performance documentation, Gigant DOKU - LuYang the Destroyer, Garage Museum, Moscow, 2021

 
Installation view, IMMATERIAL RE-MATERIAL: A Brief History of Computing, UCCA, Beijing, 2020

Installation view, IMMATERIAL RE-MATERIAL: A Brief History of Computing, UCCA, Beijing, 2020

Installation view, IMMATERIAL RE-MATERIAL: A Brief History of Computing, UCCA, Beijing, 2020

Installation view, IMMATERIAL RE-MATERIAL: A Brief History of Computing, UCCA, Beijing, 2020

Installation view, IMMATERIAL RE-MATERIAL: A Brief History of Computing, UCCA, Beijing, 2020

Installation view, IMMATERIAL RE-MATERIAL: A Brief History of Computing, UCCA, Beijing, 2020

 

Cyber Altar

Art Basel Hong Kong, 2019

Installation view, Cyber altar, Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2019

Installation view, Cyber altar, Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2019

Lu Yangs’s work delves into the relationship between technology and religion, though these fields overlap without any pretense of binary opposition—religion is not always blindly superstitious and technology is not necessarily the pinnacle of scientific thought. The work Electromagnetic Brainology gets its pulse from the Buddhist and Hindu conception of the four great elements—Earth, Water, Fire and Air—corresponding to the four great pains in the brain’s neurological system. The artist thus creates four deities armed with modern medical techniques and equipment intending to dissolve the overarching sources of human suffering. These elements constitute our human bodies and the great pains of earth, water, fire and air become the slings and arrows, reflecting the difficulties that all people experience in their lives. The four decompositions discussed in Buddhism are a series of processes that ultimately lead to the death of our human flesh.

The artist incorporates her own image and form into the artwork without fear or hesitation, having a representation of her body inserted slowly into a coffin before being loaded headlong into an intricate, yet kitsch version of a traditional Chinese, ornament-laden funeral car. Since death is such a profoundly sensitive and fear-inducing taboo, particularly in societies with roots in Chinese culture, the artist has no choice but to incarnate herself in the leading role of the piece. Though images of Lu Yang’s own form are peppered throughout most of her works, her self-image should not be seen as a manifestation of the artist’s narcissism, but rather as a liberating exorcism ritual, an expulsion of immobilizing demons.

Installation view, Cyber altar, Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2019

Installation view, Cyber altar, Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2019

 

PUBLICATION

Cyber Altar

 
 
Installation view, Micro Era - Media art from China, Kulturforum, Berlin, 2019

Installation view, Micro Era - Media art from China, Kulturforum, Berlin, 2019

Installation view, Micro Era - Media art from China, Kulturforum, Berlin, 2019

Installation view, Micro Era - Media art from China, Kulturforum, Berlin, 2019

Installation view, Micro Era - Media art from China, Kulturforum, Berlin, 2019

Installation view, Micro Era - Media art from China, Kulturforum, Berlin, 2019

Installation view, Micro Era - Media art from China, Kulturforum, Berlin, 2019

Installation view, Micro Era - Media art from China, Kulturforum, Berlin, 2019

Uterus Man, 2013, video, length: 11 min 20 sec

Installation view, Micro Era - Media art from China, Kulturforum, Berlin, 2019

Installation view, Micro Era - Media art from China, Kulturforum, Berlin, 2019

Installation view, Micro Era - Media art from China, Kulturforum, Berlin, 2019

Installation view, Micro Era - Media art from China, Kulturforum, Berlin, 2019

 

Material World Knight

Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, 2018

Installation view, Material World Knight, Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, 2018

Installation view, Material World Knight, Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, 2018

Material World Knight combines concepts of the “material world” found in Buddhist thought, namely the ultimate destruction of the universe. Against this backdrop of the “material world,” the artist imagines a battle between AI robots and humans. Part of the work was filmed using the urban model landscape at the Tokusatsu (special filming) exhibition of Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto, and invited the Japanese cosplay group nyoROBOTtics and mechanical model designer Ikeuchi Hiroto to perform while wearing mechanical models. The exhibition site combines images, Tokusatsu models and landscape design, and integrates various pieces of works implicated by Lu Yang over the years, creating a complete Lu Yang style “material world.”

Installation view, Material World Knight, Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, 2018

Installation view, Material World Knight, Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, 2018

Installation view, Material World Knight, Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, 2018

Installation view, Material World Knight, Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, 2018

Installation view, Material World Knight, Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, 2018

Installation view, Material World Knight, Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, 2018

Video still, Lu Yang, Material World Knight, 2019, Edition of 6 + 2 AP

Video still, Lu Yang, Material World Knight, 2019, Edition of 6 + 2 AP

 

Welcome to LuYang Hell

Société, Berlin 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Lu Yang’s multimedia installations combine video, sculptural elements, lighting, and soundtracks made in collaboration with different musicians. The videos themselves are fast-paced, delivering various types of information at once: highly detailed and sometimes intense digital imagery layered with moving graphics, voiceovers also available as subtitles in translation, and high-energy soundtracks ranging from techno to opera to death metal. The installations can be immersive and overwhelming. Viewers are left with strong impressions, but to grasp the videos in all their detail, viewers would probably have to watch them multiple times. Or you can let them wash over you–colorful and keyed-up, like a music video or a futuristic educational film.

Lu Yang Delusional Crime and Punishment (2016)

The protagonist of this video is Lu Yang herself: Her 3D-scanned head has been mounted on a stock CGI body. First, the figure is 3D printed and packaged with the label “Made by God”, then it’s tortured and drawn into hell. Lu Yang brings up the idea that, if humankind was created by a God, our propensity to sin was preordained, and our arrival in hell inevitable. The video invokes various religions’ symbols and mythologies regarding hell. Music by GAMEFACE.

Lu Yang Delusional Mandala (2015)

The CGI character with Yang’s face returns in this video, a meditation on medicine and technology. Her brain is submitted to a variety of tests discussed in voiceover. The video deals with the idea that technology might elevate humankind. It’s also filled with religious imagery and dancing digital marionettes. Soundtrack by DJ Cavia.

Lu Yang Power of Will - final shooting (2016) & Lu Yang Gong Tau Kite (2016)

This installation–comprising the balloon head and two videos–incorporates elements of two works: As her contribution to the exhibition Smart Illumination Yokohama in Japan in 2016, Lu Yang produced a giant balloon printed with her face–mouth open wide, beams of light erupting from her eyes. At Société, it takes a slightly different form filling two rooms. On one of the two monitors located nearby, viewers will find video documentation of the work set to a soundtrack produced by Yllis. The other monitor shows Lu Yang Gong Tau Kite. In 2016–in Weifang, China–Lu Yang created and flew a giant kite depicting her 3D-scanned face. Her mouth is upturned into something between a smile and a grimace, her eyes are wide, and long strands of her hair snake along in the wind while it flies. The video incorporates footage filmed via drone.

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

Installation view, Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin, 2017

 

Encephalon Heaven

M WOODS, Beijing, 2017

Installation view, Encephalon Heaven, M WOODS, Beijing, 2017

Installation view, Encephalon Heaven, M WOODS, Beijing, 2017

Installation view, Encephalon Heaven, M WOODS, Beijing, 2017

Installation view, Encephalon Heaven, M WOODS, Beijing, 2017

Installation view, Encephalon Heaven, M WOODS, Beijing, 2017

Installation view, Encephalon Heaven, M WOODS, Beijing, 2017

Installation view, Encephalon Heaven, M WOODS, Beijing, 2017

Installation view, Encephalon Heaven, M WOODS, Beijing, 2017

Lu Yang

Lu Yang b.1984, Shanghai lives and works in Shanghai and Tokyo. He was selected Artist of the Year 2022 by Deutsche Bank. His work is also part of WORLDBUILDING curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist at Julia Stoschek collection in Düsseldorf and in the Centre Pompidou-Metz.

Lu Yang has been the subject of solo exhibitions at international institutions such as Kunsthalle Basel, Basel; Palais Populaire, Berlin; ARoS Museum, Aarhus; M Woods, Beijing; MOCA Cleveland; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo and Kunstpalais Erlangen. He has participated in group exhibitions at The Milk of Dreams at La Biennale di Venezia; Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai; CCA Tel Aviv; ICA, London; Muzeum Sztuki, Poland; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; and Fridericianum, Kassel among others.

Solo exhibitions

  • 2024

    Open Space #14 Lu Yang, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris

    Reimagine: Himalayan Art Now, Rubin Museum of Art, New York

  • 2023

    Lu Yang DOKU Experience Center, Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year 2022, MUDEC, Milan

    LuYang Arcade Liverpool, FACT Liverpool
    DOKU HongKong Experience Center, Oi! Street Art Space, Hong Kong
    LuYang Vibratory Field, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel
    Lu Yang Material Wonderland, Vellum LA, Los Angeles

  • 2022

    NetiNeti, Zabludowicz Collection, London
    Lu Yang DOKU Experience Center, Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year 2022, Palais Polpulaire, Berlin
    False Awakening, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Erlangen
    MAM Screen 015, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
    DOKU – the Binary World (performance), Freespace, Hong Kong; Sydney Opera House, Sydney
    Heaven 2 Hell by the Orange Garden, Panetteria Atomica, Rome
    Screen Bodies, Australian Centre on China in the World, presented by ANU College of Asia & the Pacific, Canberra

  • 2021

    DOKU: Digital Descending, ARoS, Aarhus
    DOKU: Digital Alaya, Jane Lombard Gallery, New York
    Asrava World, COMA Gallery, Sydney
    GIGANT DOKU – LuYang the destroyer, Garage Museum, Moscow

    Lu Yang’s Control Center, Gether Contemporary, Copenhagen

  • 2019

    Debut, BANK/MABSOCIETY, Shanghai
    Delusional Mandala, Fotografiska, Stockholm
    The Game World of Material World Knight, CC Foundation & Art Center, Shanghai

    Cyber Altar, Art Basel Hong Kong under the auspices of Société, Berlin

  • 2018

    Electromagnetic Brainology, Spiral, Tokyo

    Electromagnetic Brainology, Âme Nue, Hamburg

  • 2017

    Lu Yang Asia Character Setting Show, Special Special, New York

    Encephalon Heaven, M WOODS, Beijing
    Welcome to LuYang Hell, Société, Berlin
    Delusional Mandala, MOCA Cleveland, Cleveland
    Delusional Mandala, Space Gallery, Portland

  • 2016

    Shanghainese in Yokohama, Zou no Hana Terrace, Yokohama
    Lu Yang Delusional Mandala, abc gallery night at Société, Berlin
    LuYang Delusional Crime and Punishment, NYU Shanghai Art Gallery, Shanghai

    Delusional Mandala, Interstitial, Seattle

  • 2015

    Delusional Mandala, Beijing Commune, Beijing

    ANTI-HUMANISME, OK Corral, Science Friction, Copenhagen

  • 2014

    Lu Yang Arcade, Wallplay, New York
    Lu Yang Selected Videos, Ventana244 Art Gallery, New York

    KIMOKAWA Cancer Baby, Ren Space, Shanghai

  • 2013

    Uterus Man, Art Labor Gallery, Shanghai
    The Images Beyond Good and Evil, AMNUA, Nanjing

    Lu Yang Screening Program, 3331 Arts Chiyoda, Tokyo

  • 2011

    11th Winds of Artist in Residence Part 2 – LuYang, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka

    The Anatomy of Rage (Wrathful King Kong Core), Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing

    The Project of KRAFTTREMOR, Boers Li Gallery, Beijing

  • 2010

    Lu Yang Hell, Art Labor, Shanghai

    Torturous Vision, Input/Output, Hong Kong

  • 2009

    The Power of Reinforcement, Zendai MOMA, Shanghai

Group exhibitions

  • 2023

    WORLDBUILDING, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz
    HOPE, Museion, Bolzano
    MIES CAPSULE 1: Lu Yang x Rudolf Belling, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
    Unidentified Fluid Other (UFO), Nxt Museum, Amsterdam
    In Search of the Present, Espoo Museum of Modern Art (EMMA), Espoo
    Buddha10, A fragmented display on Buddhist visual evolution, Fondazione Torino Musei, Turin
    Comparative Hell: Arts of Asian Underworlds, Asia Society Museum, New York
    Palais Augmenté 3, Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris
    DOKU - Six Realms of Reincarnation, Bruton Street window, supported by Chanel, London
    CAMK Collection Exhibition Vol. 7, Memory Storage for the Future, Kumamoto Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto

    The Messyverse Exhibition, Felix Meritis, Amsterdam
    The 7th Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Mueum of Art, Guangzhou
    Ebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions 2023, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo
    DA Z Festival 2023, Museum für Gestaltung, Zurich
    Crypto Art Seoul 2023, Seoul
    Game Society, MMCA, Seoul
    FILE – Electronic Language International Festival, Supercreativity, São Paulo
    Art in the age of hyper technological reproductions, GYRE Gallery , Tokyo
    MEET YOUR ART FESTIVAL 2023, Tav Gallery , Tokyo
    Dogo Art 2023, Matsuyama

  • 2022

    The Milk of Dreams, 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Venice
    Buddha10, A fragmented display on Buddhist visual evolution, Fondazione Torino Musei, Turin
    Fanatic Heart, ParaSite, Hong Kong
    In Search of the Present, EMMA, Espoo
    UFO – Unidentified Fluid Other, Nxt Museum, Amsterdam
    GHOSTS OF THE MACHINE, The Polygon Gallery, Vancouver
    Beneath the Skin, Between the Machines, HOW Art Museum, Shanghai
    Hacking Identity - Dancing Diversity, Möllerei, Luxembourg
    Ultra Unreal, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney
    Epoch Wars, Performing Lines, Chronus Art Centre, Shanghai
    No False Idols, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney
    WORLDBUILDING, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Julia Stoschek Foundation, Düsseldorf
    6th BIAN - International Digital Art Biennial - METAMORPHOSIS - MUTATION, by ELEKTRA at Arsenal Contemporary Art Montreal, Montreal
    Munch Triennial: The Machine is Us, Munch Museum, Oslo
    GOGBOT Festival, Enschede

    Cloud Walkers, Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul

    FILE – Electronic Language International Festival, Supercreativity, São Paulo
    Slip.Stream.Slip - Resistance and velocity in game engine culture, School of Digital Art (SODA) Gallery, University of Manchester, Manchester

  • 2021

    The Earth is Flat Again, Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź
    Rehearsing the future: Dance with Nonhuman, Alien Art Center, Kaohsiung City
    Rising Festival Melbourne, Melbourne
    we do not dream alone, Asia Society Triennial, New York
    Borau Hall Screening, CineZeta, Madrid
    Fake Me Hard, Rotterdam
    Radical Gaming: Immersion Simulation Subversion, Haus der elektronischen Künste, Basel

    Ultra Unreal 2021, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney
    MUNCH Triennale, Munch Museum, Oslo
    Multi-prismatic Mutual View, Macau Cultural Centre, Macau Museum of Art, Macau
    5th Bian Metamorphosis, Organized by Elektra, Arsenal Contemporary Art, Montreal

    IMAGE TO IMAGE, Person Projects’s video-art series, Berlin
    Art for the Future International Biennial, Multimedia Art Museum Moscow, Moscow
    Quad Mirror (By myself, For myself, to myself & ourselves), PARCEL, Tokyo
    THE UNBODY, virtual exhibition, P.P.O.W gallery, New York
    Manque de Recul, Pearl Art Museum, Shanghai
    Both Sides Now 6: Viral Futures, Videotage, Hong Kong; Videoclub, UK

  • 2020

    Art Is Still Here: A Hypothetical Show for a Closed Museum, M WOODS, Beijing
    Neurones – Les Intelligences Simulées, Centre Pompidou, Paris
    Pixelsfest, Yeltsin Cultural Center, Yekaterinburg
    FEEDBACK LOOPS, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
    BIAN Biennale internationale d’art numérique, International Digital Art Biennale, Montreal
    Live performance at ELEKTRA International Digital Art Biennial, Montreal
    Asia Society Triennial, New York
    LICHTSICHT, Projection Triennale Osnabrück, Münster and Bielefeld
    Bangkok Art Biennale 2020, Bangkok
    Made by Artists online exhibition, Content Lab, Videotage, Hong Kong
    Bangkok Art Biennial 2020, Bangkok
    Heavy Bored, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Auckland
    Online Viewing, Bit Street Hong Kong, New Art Fest 2020, by Ocupart, Lisbon
    Futurological Congress, Transart Festival, Bolzano
    ACC Gwangju-Asia Artists Exhibition < UN·TACT >, Asia Culture Center, Gwangju
    IMMATERIAL / RE-MATERIAL: A brief history of computing art, UCCA, Beijing
    Player of Beings, Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai
    Manque de Recul, Pearl Art Museum, Shanghai
    Learning What Can’t Be Taught, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong
    Both Sides Now 6, Videotage, Hong Kong; Videoclub, UK
    European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück
    Global launch of Cloud Nothing Music Video Am I Something: Player of Beings, Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai

  • 2019

    Micro Era. Media Arts From China, Kulturforum, Berlin
    Stumbling Through the Uncanny Valley: Sculpture and Self in the Age of Computer Generated Imagery, The Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
    Chinernet Ugly, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester
    LOW FORM. Imaginaries and Visions in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, MAXXI (National Museum of XXI Arts), Video Gallery, Rome
    Some Kind of Halfway Place, Higher Pictures Gallery, New York
    TEC ART, WORM Slash Gallery, Rotterdam
    Vidéoformes 2019, Clermont-Ferrand
    Computer Grrrls, La Gaité Lyrique, Paris
    Zoextropy. The posthuman beauty, Museum Centre del Carme, Valencia
    Lost & Found Rituals, Theatrum Anatomicum Waag, Amsterdam
    The Chasm, Franz-Josef-Kai 3/17, Vienna
    The Flat World, organized by Alternative LOOP Space, held at Sky Garden of Hyundai Department Store, Seoul

    Refiguring Binaries, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, New York

    Computer Grrrls, MU artspace, Eindhoven
    The Coming World, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow
    OnLife Convention, Milan
    ShangHai Document group exhibition, Shanghai Himalayas Museum, Shanghai

    Free Prism – Video Wave, OCT Boxes Art Museum, Shenzhen
    NGUYEN CONG TRI, 20 Years of Fashion, Ho Chi Minh City

  • 2018

    Diesel Worm, Roskilde Festival, Roskilde
    Vector Festival, InterAccess Gallery, Toronto
    China bi-annual festival “China Time”, Âme Nue, Hamburg
    Lumen Quarterly by World Organization of Video Culture Development, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing

    FUTURE FLASH 200, from Frankenstein to Hyperbrain, GOGBOT Festival for Creative Technology, Enschede
    Computer Grrrls, HMKV, Dortmund / La Gaité Lyrique, Paris
    Nowness Anniversary Exhibition, Shanghai
    True Self, Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation, Beijing
    Digital Art Festival Taipei, Taipei City
    AN IM AL Art Science Nature Society, Hong Kong City University, Hong Kong
    TAxT Taoyuan Science and Technology Festival, Taoyuan City
    Big Workout-Annual International Project III, Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, Nanjing
    Conversation on the Edge, School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Department of Film, Video and New Media, in collaboration with the Gene Siskel Film Center and the Video Data Bank, Chicago
    From/To: the Frontier of Chinese Art Education-China Academy of Art at SFAI, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco

    ANTI, 6th Athens Biennale, Athens
    Progress, 12th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai
    ONE WORLD EXPOSITION 2.2 #like4like, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong
    Customized Reality: the Lure and Enchantment of Digital Art, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung

    HyperPrometheus, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth
    RAM HIGHLIGHT 2018: Is It My Body?, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai
    Some Kind of Halfway Place, Higher Pictures Gallery, New York

  • 2017

    Ballade, Animamix Contemporary Art, Macao Museum of Art, Macao
    Post-sense Sensibility – Trepidation and Will, McaM, Shanghai
    A Nomination Exhibition of Three Rooms, Chronus Art Center, Shanghai
    Forever Fornever, Wrong Biennale, Rhode Island College, Rhode Island
    Belief in the Power of Gesture, Projektraum LS43, Berlin
    Promises of Monsters, Fuchsbau Festival 2017, Hannover
    FOREVER FORNEVER, Rhode Island College, Bannister Gallery, Providence
    Culture City of East Asia 2017 Kyoto: Asia Corridor Contemporary Art Exhibition, Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto

    After Party 1 : Collective Dance and Individual Gymnastics, Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong
    one world expo 2.1 #like4like, K11, Hongkong
    After Us, K11, Shanghai
    Are We Human, Princeton University, New Jersey

  • 2016

    Dirty Bomb, Steve Turner Gallery, Los Angeles
    Hyperlinks 2, Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
    Believe In the Power of Gesture, Projektraum LS43, Berlin
    Post-sense-sensibility: Trepidation and Will, Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing
    ARE WE HUMAN?: The Design of the Species: 2 seconds, 2 days, 2 years, 200 years, 200,000 years, 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial, Istanbul
    Time Test: International Video Art Research Exhibition, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing
    Beijing Media Art Biennale, Beijing
    Smart Illumination, Zou no Hana Terrace, Yokohama
    Why the Performance, MCAM, Shanghai
    CYNETART Festival 2016, Theater Hall Hellerau, Dresden
    asia young 36, JEONBUK MUSEUM OF ART, JeonJu
    Green Celadon, The Artist House, Tel Aviv
    Glas Animation Festival, Berkeley, San Francisco
    Asia Contemporary Art Exhibition 2016, Jeonbuk Museum of Art, Jeonbuk
    Liverpool Biennial 2016 – Circuit Breaker Screening Program, Institute of Contemporary Art, London
    Queensland Film Festival 2016, Queensland
    Time Test: International Video Art Research Exhibition, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing

    The Exhibition of Annual of Contemporary Art of China, Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing

    The 3rd Edition of the International Digital Art Biennial, Montreal
    Mapping the Body, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck
    The Shadow Never Lies, 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai

    We: A Community of Chinese Contemporary Artists, chi K11 Art Museum, Shanghai
    WeChat: A Dialogue in Contemporary Chinese Art, Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University, Middletoen; Asia Society Texas Center, Houston
    Temporal Turn: Art and Speculation in Contemporary Asia, Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence
    East Asia Moving, Videoclub, UK
    New Alchemists, Salamanca Arts Centre, Battery Point
    European Media Art Festival 2016, Kunsthalle Osnabrück, Osnabrück
    Stimulation Overload 2, Superchief Gallery, New York

  • 2015

    Glas Animation Festival, Los Angeles
    Imaginary Circle, Asian-Plastic Myths, Asian Cultural Center, Kwangju
    Weaving the Asian Democracy, Asian Cultural Center, Kwangju
    Moscow Biennale 2016, Moscow
    The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku
    Psycho/Somatic: Visions of the Body in Contemporary East Asian Art, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin

    Breaking Joints, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
    Bad Asians 3.0, Dirty Looks NYC, New York
    Absolute Collection Guideline, SiFang Art Museum, Nanjing
    All the World’s Futures, the 56th La Biennale di Venezia – China Pavilion, Venice
    Rendez-vous, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore
    Essential Experiments: Introduce Chinese Video Arts, British Film Institute, London
    New Directions In Chinese Animation, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
    Inhuman, Museum Fidericianum, Kassel
    Transcending Tibet-Mapping Contemporary Tibetan Art in the Global Context, New York
    Winter Film Awards 2015, Indie Film Festival, New York
    Transcending Tibet-Mapping Contemporary Tibetan Art in the Global Context, Rogue Space Chelsea, New York

    DeMonstrable, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, The University of Western Australia, Perth
    Both Sides Now 2 – It was the Best of Times, it was the Worst of Times?, Videotage, Hong Kong
    The Wrong Digital Art Biennale, Intelligentsia Gallery, Beijing
    Asian Arts Space Network, Asia Culture Center, Gwangju
    I SEE International Video Art Festival, OCT, Guangzhou

  • 2014

    OCAT-Pierre Huber Prize Shortlist Exhibition, OCAT Shanghai, Shanghai
    Performance and Imaginations: Photography from China 1911-2014, Art Museum, Stavanger
    The 5th FukuokaAsian Art Triennale, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka
    The IV International Biennale for Young Art, the Museum of Moscow, Moscow
    PANDAMONIUM: Media Art from Shanghai, Momentum, CAC/Chronus Art Center, Berlin
    My Generation: Young Chinese Artists, Tampa Museum of Art and Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg

    PANDAMONIUM Micro-Exhibition #2: Ai Weiwei + Lu Yang, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin
    LA Asian Pacific Film Fest, Los Angeles
    Animamix Biennale 2013-2014 Rediscovery, Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, Shanghai
    Art Robotique, Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, Paris
    Unpainted Media Art Fair – LAB3.0, Munich
    Warp Zone + Fay’s Festival, Amsterdam

  • 2013

    Neo Folk, Ikkan Art Gallery, Singapore
    7th Move on Asia, Alternative Space LOOP, Seoul
    No Name, Ren Space, Shanghai
    Queer Project 2013, Nha San Collective, Hanoi
    Degeneration, OCAT, Shanghai
    Art World – Second Hand, Power Station of Art, Shanghai
    GLOBAL PHOTO COLLABORATIONS, Diesel Art Gallery, Tokyo
    West bund 2013: A Biennial of Architecture and Contemporary Art, Shanghai

    ASVOFF - A Shaded View on Fashion Film, Centre Pompidou, Paris

    Rendez-vous 2013, Musée d’art contemporain of Lyon, Lyon
    OFF COURSE / FUORI ROTTA, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice
    The Garden of Forking Paths: Exploring Independent Animation, OCT, Shanghai

    Some like it hot, Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai

    Memo, White Space, Beijing
    Truth, Beauty, freedom and money, K11, Shanghai

    Tampere Film Festival, Tampere

    Pépinière, Lavitrine, Limousin Art Contemporain & Sculptures, Paris
    ON/OFF: China’s Young Artists in Concept & Practice, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing

  • 2012

    ESCAPE(s) - in/from china #3, Centre d’Arts plastiques et visuels de Lille, Lille
    UNFINISHED COUNTRY, Asia Society, Houston
    PERSPECTIVES 180 – UNFINISHED COUNTRY: NEW VIDEO FROM CHINA, Contemporary Arts Museum Huston, Houston

    Dressing the screen – the rise of fashion film, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing
    Reactivation – Shanghai Biennale 2012, Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai
    Project Daejeon 2012: Energy, Daejeon Museum, Daejeon
    The Shadow of Language, Royal College of Art, London
    Unseen – Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou Fine Art Museum, Guangzhou
    Hinterlands, Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco
    VIRTUAL VOICES – approaching social media and art in China, Charles H.Scott Gallery, Vancouver
    Get It Louder, Beijing
    Rapid Pulse, DFB Performance Gallery, Chicago
    Sub-Phenomena, the first CAFAM-Futureexhibition, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing
    The Untouchables, Saamlung Gallery, Hong Kong
    Solar Plexus, V Art Center, Shanghai
    Solar Plexus, Space Station, London
    It takes four sorts: A cross-strait Four-Regions Artistic Exchange Project, Taipei Fine Arts Museum
    FOCUS2012, Kunsthal Nikolaj, Copenhagen
    Symptoms, Iberiart, Beijing
    Impakt Art Festival 2012, Utrecht

  • 2011

    Video Art in China – MADATAC, Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid
    Hypnosis, TIVAC, Taipei
    HIGH 5 – FIVE YEARS OF ART LABOR 2006 – 2011, Art Labor Gallery, Shanghai
    CAFAM Biennale – Super Organism, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing
    Moving Image in China: 1988-2011, Mingsheng Art Museum, Shanghai
    Little Movements: Possibilities of Self-construction in Art, OCAT, Shenzhen
    Hypnosis, Other Gallery, Beijing
    Fruits of experimental contemporary art education in China, Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai

    China Future Festival, Top Building, Shanghai
    Focus on Talents Project, Today Art Museum, Beijing
    +Follow, Shanghai MOCA, Shanghai
    In a Perfect World..., Meulensteen Gallery, New York
    Grafted in, 53 Art Museum, Guangzhou

  • 2010

    Beijing 798 Art Festival, Beijing 798 Art Zone, Beijing
    Reflection of Minds – MoCA Shanghai Envisage 3, Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai

    Young Media Artists: China, Japan and Korea in INDAF 2010, Tomorrow City, Incheon
    Use the Hand Do the Job, Excellent Graduation Work, Shift Space, Shanghai
    Exhibition of China Academy of Art, Gallery of China Acdemy of Art, Hangzhou
    Seven Young Artist, Beijing Commune, Beijing
    Jungle – A Close-Up Focus on Chinese Contemporary Art Trends, Platform China, Beijing

    Burning Youth, Hangzhou
    GO Young Artist Group Show, OCAT Art Center, Shenzhen

  • 2009

    Bourgeoisified Proletariat – Small production, Songjiang New City Thames Town, Shanghai
    The Quantity Bears Identity –How Shanghainese people treat themselves in public transport, KultFlux Art Space, Vilnius

    PRESENT exhibition, CANART, Shanghai
    Yang Chang Xiao Dao, Am art space, Shanghai
    Itchy Young Artist Group Show, Biz Art, Shanghai

  • 2008

    Small production – No.5, Shopping Gallery, Shanghai

    Fractal Note – 9/9, Metoo Space, Hangzhou
    Spade, T-space, 798 Art Zone, Beijing

  • 2007

    Pierre Huber Creation Prize, Biz Art, Shanghai
    what’s the time? Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou

    New Media Art Exhibition, Creek Art Gallery, Shanghai
    Fruits of experimental contemporary art education in China, Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai
    Art Warming New Media Artists Exhibition, Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai
    New Directions from China, New Media Art exhibition from China, Plug In Basel, Basel
    Graduation Exhibition of New Media Art department 2007, CAA Gallery of China Academy of Art, Hangzhou

Screenings

  • 2023

    The great adventure of Material World, Nxt Museum, Amsterdam
    Spirits, Jinns, and Avatars. On Magic in the Digital Age, HAU, Berlin
    DOKU: Digital Reincarnation, Times Square Arts, Times Square, New York

    Seoul International Alt Cinema & Media Festival, Seoul

  • 2022

    The Future is Here, Are You Coming?, University of Chicago, Chicago

    MAM Screen 015: Lu Yang, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

  • 2021

    Lu Yang Studio Visit, Centre d’art Contemporain Geneve, Geneve

    Arts Lovers Movie Club, Art Review Magazine, Online
    European Media Art Festival, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi Chinese Arts Now, Online

  • 2020

    Online Screening and Conversation, The Polygon Gallery, Vancouver
    Videotage Media Art Collection – Paranormal, an online screening program by Videotage, Hong Kong

  • 2019

    Sunset Kino, an outdoor, avant-garde film program, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg

    Art House Cinema, ACUDkino, Berlin
    in-class screening, California Institute of the Arts, Santa Clarita

  • 2017

    Notes on the Afterlife, Rokolectiv Festival 2017, Bucharest

    LOOP Barcelona, Cinemes Girona, Barcelona

  • 2016

    East Asia Moving, Videoclub, UK

  • 2014

    MOMENTUM_InsideOut, Berlin Art Week, Berlin

    Warp Zone+Fay’s Festival, Amsterdam
    Video Art Review THE 02, Krakow
    inHOUSE Film Festival, London

  • 2012

    Impakt Art Festival 2012, Utrecht

  • 2010

    Beijing 798 Art Festival, Beijing 798 Art Zone, Beijing

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