Fabricatorz Foundation x Vellum LA x Feral File present:
Lu Yang’s Material Wonderland
Opening Reception:
Thursday, February 16, 6-9 PM
On View at Vellum LA:
February 17 - March 12, 2023
Vellum LA
7673 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles CA 90046
Fabricatorz Foundation, Vellum LA, and Feral File are proud to announce Material Wonderland, the first exhibition of NFT works by Chinese multimedia artist Lu Yang, presented physically at Vellum LA and online on Feral File from February 16–March 5th, 2023. The exhibition is co-curated by Alice Scope, curator of Vellum LA, and Barry Threw, Executive and Artistic Director of San Francisco-based cultural incubator Gray Area.
This fresh presentation of Lu Yang’s metamorphic world comes at a critical time when shared online spaces are increasingly conditioning the possibilities for defining our own modes of being. The avatars, actions, and settings in the Material Wonderland exhibition gesture toward the transformative potential of video games to serve as sites of enactment and exploration, while also demonstrating the vital role of artists in anticipating cultural traumas and envisioning expansive responses. Resisting the myopic view of virtual worlds as escapism, Material Wonderland presents an interactive open narrative as a transcendental technology-of-the-self, providing a toolkit for reconstructing identity back in the physical world.
The exhibition includes eight new NFT works, a first for the artist, and will be available for purchase via online platform partner Feral File, minted on the Ethereum blockchain. Also shown will be works available as non-NFT digital files: two full-length video works exploring the game world as well as a massive video triptych of Material World Knight, first shown at the 2018 Shanghai Biennale, now presented on an immersive 600 sq ft panoramic LED wall or one night only for Vellum LA’s opening reception and as a solo exhibition at the gallery on view through March 5th, 2023.
The NFT works in the series are video loops rendered from within Lu Yang’s 2019 computer game The Great Adventure of Material World. The game is initially experienced as a standard Japanese anime role-playing computer game, where players embody the Material World Knight as they complete quests and battle enemies together with other characters drawn from the artist’s earlier works, while growing in power and abilities. However, over the course of ten stages players undergo multiple identity transformations as they move beyond tropes of popular manga culture to explore the control of identity liberated from the rigid confines of nationality, gender, and sexuality.
The opening reception on February 16th is RSVP only, and will be attended by the artist, and also include a DJ set by Chinese DJ and STRRR.tv co-founder Philip Lai. Private pre-showings are available for collectors by request.
About Lu Yang
Multimedia artist Lu Yang creates fantastical, often painful, and shocking images which represent an interdisciplinary blend of religion, philosophy, neuroscience, psychology and modern technology, as well as the allusions to real life forms and structures of natural and religious origin. The output of Lu Yang’s artistic practice spans game engines, 3D-animated films, video game installations, holograms, motion capture performances, virtual reality and software manipulation. The artist also collaborates with acclaimed scientists, psychologists, performers, dancers, experimental composers, music producers, robotics companies and pop stars.
Lu Yang graduated with a BA and MA from the New Media Art department of the ChinaAcademy of Art in Hangzhou. Their work has been featured in major museums and institutions internationally, Lu Yang participated in the 2022 Venice Biennale. Recent solo exhibitions are at Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland (2023); ZabludowiczCollection, London, UK (2022-23); Palais Populaire, Berlin, Germany (2022 - 23); ARoSAarhus Art Museum, Aarhus, Denmark (2021–22); Spiral, Tokyo, Japan (2018); MWOODS, Beijing, China (2017–18); MOCA Cleveland, Cleveland, USA(2017); UllensCenter for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing, China (2011); and FukuokaAsiaArt Museum, Fukuoka, Japan (2011).
Recent works in large-scale thematic exhibitions include The Milk of Dreams, 59th Venice Biennale 2022; Asia Society Triennial 2021, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020); Shanghai Biennale 2018 and 2012; AthensBiennale 2018; Liverpool Biennial 2016; Montreal International Digital Art Biennial 2016; 56th Venice Biennale 2015 (Chinese Pavilion); and Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale2014.LuYang was awarded the BMW Art Journey in 2019, following which they commenced the making of a new digital body of work titled DOKU. They arealsothewinner of the Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year 2022 award.
About Fabricatorz Foundation
Fabricatorz Foundation is a non-profit supporting creative technologists and emerging cultural practitioners with community-focused initiatives that create energy transformation through art, technology, and culture. Based in St. Louis, Fabricatorz Foundation fosters community impact through local/global cultural exchange, events, education, and project incubation. It is the sponsor organization of #NEWPALMYRA, Qi Hardware, the Fashion Freedom Initiative, and the Bassel Khartabil Fellowship.
About Feral File
Feral File commissions curated exhibitions of digital artwork and we partner with artists and institutions to explore new ways of exhibiting and collecting. Evolving from the art gallery and publishing models, we are borrowing the best traits of each to inform a new kind of art space. Feral File works in tandem with a community of technologists, new media artists, collectors, and curators to redefine and frame a sustainable model for the future of digital experimentation.
