Open Space #14 Lu Yang - DOKU THE FLOW
Lu Yang is a multimedia artist who graduated from the China Academy of Art’s New Media Art Department in Hangzhou. The artist was born in China in 1984 and lives and works in Shanghai
and Tokyo.
Lu Yang has a multidisciplinary practice and particularly favours the use of advanced digital technologies, and wide-ranging collaborations, including designers, composers, psychologists, dancers, engineers and scientists, through which he creates virtual worlds that unfold in immersive video installations. His fantastic imaginary realm, one with postapocalyptic overtones, is born of a syncretism in which Japanese popular culture – video games, manga, anime, pop music - dovetails with Buddhist spirituality, transhumanist theories and neuroscientific research. From this concoction, the artist brings to life hybrid creatures that transcend identity concepts of gender, sex and nationality to better understand what it means to be human in the 21st century.
For Open Space #14, his first solo exhibition in a French institution, Lu Yang conceives a unique video installation centered around his new film DOKU The Flow, the second chapter of the “DOKU” series. Derived from the Japanese word DOKUSHO DOKUSHI, meaning “We are born alone, and we die alone,” DOKU is a virtual character created from the digitization of the artist’s own body. The film depicts the solitary adventures of this multi-faced avatar through which Lu Yang transcends the boundaries of the physical body, exploring a new form of freedom through digital reincarnation.
DOKU The Flow was produced with the support of the Fondation Louis Vuitton.
Curators: Claudia Buizza and Ludovic Delalande (Fondation Louis Vuitton)
As a partner venue of the Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris), K11 will host DOKU The Flow by Lu Yang in K11 Shenzhen next spring 2025.
Lu Yang (1984, China)
Lives and works in Shanghai (China) and Tokyo (Japan)
Recent solo exhibitions: Mudec, Milano; 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.
Recent group exhibitions: Centre Pompidou-Metz; Muzeion, Bolzano; La Biennale di Venezia; Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai; CCA, Tel Aviv; ICA, London; Muzeum Sztuki, Poland; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Fridericianum, Kassel.
Lu Yang is represented by Société, Berlin.
The Open Space programme
Open Space is a programme dedicated to the most contemporary expressions of creativity. Several times each year, national and international artists are invited to create specific projects for one of the galleries in Frank Gehry’s building. Open Space actively supports emerging contemporary creation, providing the opportunity for a first personal exhibition in a museum institution and encouraging production of a new work.