Yang Xinguang’s practice has long been driven by his obsessions with soil and wilted plants. By juxtaposing these natural materials with artificial ones like steel and paint, he deliberately interrupts organic cycles of life and decay. In doing so, he creates new landscapes that serve as compressed allegories for the impact of human behavior on the natural world, or as post-human specimens of our contemporary era. This exhibition will trace out key threads from Yang’s recent practice, focusing on his use of soil and plants. The spatial experiments of the artist’s series “Above the Soil,” “Winds of Spring,” and “Warrior” will be presented alongside brand-new works. Through site-specific works—in this case actually produced on-site—the exhibition will underline Yang’s talent for crafting diverse sculptural works that exist in dialogue with their settings, whether indoors or outdoors. This exhibition is curated by UCCA Curator Chelsea Qianxi Liu.

About the Artist

Yang Xinguang (b. 1980, Hunan, China; lives and works in Beijing) received his BA in Sculpture from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, China, in 2007. His works have been featured in many museums and institutions, such as UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; UCCA Dune, Beidaihe; Nazionale D’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome; The National Gallery of Georgia, Tbilisi; White Rabbit Museum, Sydney; FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Nantes; Singapore Art Museum; Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg; Power Station of Art, Shanghai; Asia Culture Center, Gwangju; and M+, Hong Kong.

Yang has received many awards, including the 2010 Chinese Contemporary Art Golden Palm and the Nomination Award of the 2010 Wu Zuoren Art Awards. He has also been nominated for 2015 HUGO BOSS Asia Prize, the 2014 Award of Art China, the 2nd Huayu Youth Award (2014), and the 2011 Signature Art Prize. His works are in the collections of institutions including the 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; De Heus Collection, Netherland; G Museum, Nanjing; White Rabbit Museum, Australia; and DSL Collection (France), among others.