Yang Fudong has opened his largest solo exhibition to date, 'Fragrant River,' at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. The show features over 30 works and eight hours of video, including major new installations like the five-channel 'Young Man, Young Man' and the furniture-and-video piece 'Breastfeeding,' which immerse viewers in scenes from the artist's hometown of Xianghe.
The exhibition matters for its profound exploration of collective memory and loss amidst China's rapid modernization. Yang transforms personal nostalgia into a shared, fantastical experience, using cinematic ambiguity and immersive installations to comment on the social dimension of change, where constant renewal creates a widespread sense of displacement. His work captures a specific cultural moment while resonating with universal themes of time and remembrance.