Following Yang Fudong's 2020 solo exhibition Endless Peaks—where he paid homage to Song-Yuan monk painter Yan Hui through storyboard-style single-frame paintings—and his 2025 solo show Fragrant River at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, which presented the 15-panel painting installation Private Notes from a Land of Bliss, Yang Fudong unveils his latest creation: the 20-panel group work Solitary Hill and Plantain Rain.
The piece continues his years-long exploration of his signature painting-film language. Static imagery unfolds slowly like a traditional Chinese handscroll, inviting audiences to engage with the work while walking. Viewers experience the narrative rhythm of cinematic montage through spatial movement.
The creation originates from two profound cultural origins. The first is Solitary Hill in Hangzhou. A celebrated cultural landmark on West Lake, Solitary Hill has long served as a gathering retreat for literati and a sanctuary for spiritual sustenance since the Song Dynasty. Literary figures such as Bai Juyi and Su Dongpo once composed verses here, while Lin Hejing embodied the ideal of reclusive seclusion through his legendary lifestyle of “plum blossoms as wife and cranes as children”. Solitary Hill carries tangible cultural heritage and symbolizes the individual’s solitary spiritual pursuit.
The second origin lies in the plantain imagery of traditional Chinese painting. With broad, graceful leaves that appear particularly elegant under rainfall, the plantain has long been adopted by ancient literati as a metaphor for the inner self, embodying contemplation, quiet observation, and subtle melancholy. Bamboo, by contrast, symbolizes refinement and noble integrity. By juxtaposing Solitary Hill and Plantain Rain, Yang Fudong constructs a literati spiritual realm hovering between ideal and reality.
In terms of medium, Solitary Hill and Plantain Rain integrates acrylic painting, black-and-white photography, video, and interdisciplinary mixed media. Its acrylic paintings draw inspiration from the Northern Song masterpiece Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden, depicting the gathering of sixteen literati including Su Shi, Mi Fu and Li Gonglin, forming a visual blueprint for the transcendental life ideals of ancient scholars.
Detail pictures:
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