Exhibit Highlight: stupid little life

Explore culture hybridity and diasporic experience through mixed media collages.

stupid little life 5Blue Sky, Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts

Chinese-born, Portland-based artist, Yuyang Zhang, showed a collection of collages and a series of photographic diptychs.

stupid little life 8Blue Sky, Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts

His work oscillates between found "formal constructions" and social commentary in a media-driven world.

stupid little life 2Blue Sky, Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts

Through pop culture references and temporal iconography, Zhang's work investigates personal and cultural identities, and social and political issues.

stupid little life 4Blue Sky, Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts

"This exhibition also encapsulates the artist's mindscape during the turbulent 20-month process of O-1B visa petition as a Chinese diaspora."

stupid little life 3Blue Sky, Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts

"Layers of old Chinese propaganda posters, screenshots, and personal photographs strip the subjects out of context and place them in new American settings."

stupid little life 1Blue Sky, Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts

"Historic communist propaganda is repurposed to bridge past and present-day China, then seamlessly blended with American political and cultural iconography." 

Back Gallery Space (2022) by Blue Sky StaffBlue Sky, Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts

"The juxtaposition creates new narratives built upon fragments deconstructed from the original. It also exposes sources of persistent stereotypes and prejudices that often burden people from China or with Chinese heritage."

stupid little life 7Blue Sky, Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts

This balance shapes its own reality between levity and seriousness, beauty and sorrow, peace and tension. stupid little life fosters a space for all, but most importantly for anyone who doesn't feel as though they are 'being enough.'" 

Yuyang Zhang (b.1993, Wuhan, China, he/him/his) is a multi-disciplinary artist living in Portland, Oregon. His collages and paintings are staged fictions that combine historical propaganda archives, personal photographs, pop cultural references, and digital iconography. He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally, including Portland, Oregon; Shenzhen, China; and Berlin, Germany. Zhang has been featured in publications including AINT-BAD, The Hand Magazine and BOOOOOOOM.

Watch Yuyang Zhang's Artist Talk

Credits: Story

Text credit: Blue Sky and the artist.

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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