Against the Light: Sampling in Two Cities attempts to take on a new perspective and approach in iterating the shared experiences and creative direction among young artists in the Pearl River Delta region, regarding Guangzhou and Hong Kong – these two developed art ecologies – as the containers for six artists and artist collectives, namely CHEN Dandizi, FONG Fo, KONG Chun Hei, TANG Dayao, TANG Kwok Hin, Sarah LAI Cheuk Wah, whose artistic practices are observed and studied through this exhibition.Against the Light proposes a perspective, inspired by the constant and strong daylight beating down on the two cities' natural and urban environment, its efflorescence shaping the urban landscape and people’s ways of life and visual experiences. Today, life is evolving into urban luminosity, with smart devices and digital screens creating an “artificial backlight” effect in the post-modern condition. Since the 1970s, artists from Guangdong have adopted the notion of the “backlight” in rendering the experience of being “under the sun” that enriched a “model for the whole country”; the artists of the Pearl River Delta region have heretofore taken on multiple or counterintuitive perspectives in magnifying the “uncanniness” of their everyday life. Against the Light aims to offer new depth to this historical narrative, while embodying a spiritual quality of “going against the grain.”

- Frank. F Yang Art and Education Foundation -

The Frank F. Yang Art and Education Foundation (“FYF”) was established in Hong Kong in 2015 by Mr. Frank F. Yang. With a firm belief in the symbiotic relationship between life and art, they expand practice beyond the white cube while blurring the boundaries between the private and public to provide new possibilities for modes of exploration and practice in art.

They currently have three spaces: YOU Space and EXTRA Space in Shenzhen and SPARE Space in Shanghai.

The projects sponsored by the Frank F. Yang Art and Education Foundation include David Diao: A Retrospective (Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing), Hinterland Project (Times Museum, Guangzhou), and the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (Shenzhen & Hong Kong).

Projects sponsored by FYF include David Diao: A Retrospective (Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing), Hinterland Project (Times Museum, Guangzhou), and the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (Shenzhen & Hong Kong).

In 2016, FYF held a pair of exhibitions of collected works, Two Moments I & II, and launched the Micro Curatorial Project, which included exhibitions and an emerging curators' workshop, while at the same time working with the Shanghai Rockbund Art Museum to sponsor the yearlong “RAM@Campus.”In July 2016, FYF hosted a public education program for the UCCA exhibition Rauschenberg in China, at YOU Space in Shenzhen, and presented Liang Quan Light as Tea | FY Collection Exhibition at EXTRA Space in the beginning of the year as well as the main exhibition Everything You Need to Know about the FY Foundation: An Exhibition.

About the exhibition

Dates: Nov 26, 2017 – Feb 25, 2018

Venue: You Space

Courtesy of the artists and You Space.