The first monograph devoted to this celebrated Chinese artist, published after the success of his first exhibition in an Italian museum.

Edited by Marcella Beccaria, the volume presents two video installations by Yang Fudong entitled The Revival of the Snake, 2005 and Jia er de sheng kou (Jiaer's Livestock), 2002-2005.

The installation The Revival of the Snake tells the story of a runaway soldier through a double projection and a series of plasma screens, concentrating on the last days of a soldier who chooses a destiny different to that which had been imposed on him. In Jiaer’s Livestock the parallel stories of two men identifies their different relations with the world. In both works the dominant role is given to the landscape, an element that links the contemporary urgencies described by Yang Fudong to the iconography of the ancient traditional of Chinese painting. As in many of his works the ambiguity of meaning is intentional and shows his opening towards the possibility of reality and at the same time the difficulty of relation to a society shot through by radical changes, inside which each individual is in search of a role and an identity.

Apart from An alienated paradise, the volume includes a selection of the principal works the artist has created on film, presenting Liu lan, a story which brings the poetry of an ancient painting to the big screen and Hou fang - hei, tian liang le (Backyard - Hey, Sun is Rising!), a work which presents the paramilitary actions of a group of men, united by an objective the sense of which remains unknown to them. The choice of films includes, moreover, the first two parts of the series Zhu lin qi xian (Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest). Part of a five-part work, the two films tell of the anxieties of a group of young men and women, making use of the vicissitudes of seven poets and artists who lived in ancient China in order to speak of the contemporary urgency for liberty and independence.

Yang Fudong (Beijing, 1971), lives and works in Shanghai. After studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, he began to produce art which ranges from photography to video and cinema. The young Chinese artist came to international attention at the end of the nineties with his first exhibitions and the presentation of his short films and films. Now considered one of the key artists of the new generation he takes a critical approach towards the contradictions of his own country and in particular the encounter-clash between a millenary tradition and the vertiginous socio-economic acceleration of China today. At Rivoli castle, in the rooms of the North Tower, the artist exhibits the video installations Dengdai shede suxing (Waiting for the Snake to Wake Up) and Jia er de sheng kou (Jiaer's Livestock) which are being presented for the first time in Europe.

Text in English and Italian.

Art Sale titles are new books but might have slight damage.