Chinese artist Yang Yongliang's virtual-reality film Nine Dragons is a visual spectacle like none other.
Miss it and you'll be kicking yourself – you've got until Saturday evening to see Views of Water, showcasing the remarkable, otherworldly new body of work by the innovative Chinese artist Yang Yongliang. For Yang's second solo exhibition at Whitestone Gallery in H Queen's, he has again delivered what he does best, using the newest techniques to reinvigorate the oldest art forms.
The exhibition is separated into three sections. First is a six-part series of eight-minute videos in which Yang has reconceptualised masterpieces by the Song Dynasty painter Ma Yuan (1160–1225) by infusing them with an undercurrent of environmental concern, given globally rising sea levels and temperatures. There's also a series of lightboxes that form a second work, in which Yang has transformed digital images and developed them onto negative film.
Finally comes the real showstopper: Nine Dragons, Yang's latest virtual-reality work, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 and is being shown in a gallery space for the first time. Again, Yang invokes a Southern Song Dynasty artist, this time Chen Rong and his Nine Dragons (1244), a handscroll painting in which the nine dragons soar among clouds, mists, seas, fire and mountains.
This artwork really stands out, as there's a special raised seat in the gallery equipped with goggles, allowing viewers to fully immerse themselves with the ten-minute work while virtually sitting on the back of a dragon, travelling over rocky mountains and underneath the ocean, simulating the sensations of riding such a beast. The goggles allow you to gaze in any and all directions, affording a 360-degree sweep of narrative and adventure.
When was the last time your art or cinema experience consisted of a journey "felt" through a dragon's point of view? It might be Song Dynasty-influenced, but it's rendered in today's pitch-perfect tune of art's digital dynasty.
Whitestone Gallery, 7/F–8/F, H Queen's, 80 Queen's Road Central, Central
Tel: +852 2523 8001
Hours: 11am–7pm (closed Sun/Mon/PH)
(whitestone-gallery.com)
