Tag: Chinese art

Artist Lu Yang is often labeled according to the themes she explores, the digital media she works with or for simply being young and Chinese. Lu Yang's art is, indeed, difficult to classify. "I am drawn to many different things," the Shanghai-born and -based artist said, "and I just like to combine them in the pieces I make, even if they wouldn't normally be associated with one another. "They are an extension of what defines me as a person," Lu said of her artworks. Breaking taboos in China may often see artists labelled "political," but Yang is — by her own admission — far from politically engaged. "A Western viewer would approach a Chinese artwork and think, 'Is this an Ai Weiwei-kind of piece?' "But that's just me and my work." "I like to say I live on the Internet," she said, "because it's the only place I feel unburdened from social expectations. "Everyone's eyes are still on China, meaning a lot of artists my age can actually do this full-time, unlike other countries, because there's demand. The Intelligence Squared event "Art is for pleasure not politics.