Virtuosic, large-scale figurative paintings that capture contemporary anxieties in harsh relief

Published to accompany a major site-specific installation in Venice, Yu Hong: Another One Bites the Dust offers an in-depth examination of the work of one of China’s foremost living artists, renowned internationally for her virtuosic large-scale figurative paintings. Yu Hong’s (born 1966) practice centers on humane depictions of contemporary life that are both deeply personal and astute in their observations of larger societal realities. Featuring beautiful installation photography of Venice’s Chiesetta della Misericordia, this book presents a new cycle of works painted on gold ground that depict the arc of human experience while referencing aspects of Buddhist narrative painting, Byzantine icons and the Italian Baroque. Through her lushly painted stories, she considers the radical changes pressed on humanity by the speed and totality of globalization, the existential climate emergency, diaspora and dispossession in many parts of the world, and the uneven histories of postcolonialism. Yu Hong’s subject is the precarity of meaning in the face of calamitous disruption.

Visual artist(s): Yu Hong
Text by: Michael Armitage, Loredana Gazzara, Nico Muhly