FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 2020
Yuge Zhou’s Video Installations Observe Unconscious Patterns of Communities in New Exhibition
Please Form a Straight Line group exhibition opens at Blue Star Contemporary for Fall/Spring Program, featuring multiple installations by artist Yuge Zhou
San Antonio, TX – Artist Yuge Zhou brings her innovative and complex video collage art installations to Texas in group exhibition Please Form a Straight Line at Blue Star Contemporary in San Antonio.
Zhou is a Chinese artist based in Chicago, best known for her video collages / three-dimensional relief installations portraying individuals and communities in American’s public spaces focusing on the relationships between humans and their environments. Zhou’s work prods the unconscious behaviours and patterns that develop when one observes others from afar.
Her work in Please Form a Straight Line propels the Blue Star Contemporary’s aim to strike up conversations concerning “themes of collectivity, municipality, property, architecture, and the control and regulation of bodies. These themes intersect where they prompt viewers to consider how society is physically and existentially designed.”
Zhou will be exhibiting installations of her series Midtown Flutter and all four parts of her series The Humors: Green Play, Deep Ends, Soft Plots, Pale Patrol.
Midtown Flutter is composed of footage of architectural patterns in midtown Manhattan, sporadically interrupted by pedestrians’ footsteps.
The Humors is composed of four video collages shot in different locations, inspired by the ancient Greek philosophy of the four temperaments or “humors” in which human personalities are predefined and capable of overlap.
Details
November 6, 2020 – May 9, 2021
Main Gallery
116 Blue Star
San Antonio, TX, 78204
More details on visiting, online reservations, and safety procedures, please visit here.
About Yuge Zhou
At the age of five, Yuge Zhou (周雨歌) became a household name in China as the singer for a popular children’s TV series. Yuge came to the US a decade ago to earn a degree in computer science and subsequently moved into video art and installations. Motivated to transform herself into a hybrid of two cultures, Yuge’s work addresses connections, isolation and longing across urban and natural environments. She creates immersive experiences through digital collaging and sculptural reliefs. Her recent projects explore metaphorically her personal history as an immigrant and bonds between her homeland and adopted country. She is also incorporating live choreographed dancers as a vehicle to explore the intersection between performance and video art.
In addition to her art practice, she curates the 3300-square foot 150 Media Stream, a unique public digital art installation in Chicago. Yuge’s work has been featured in various publications such as New York Magazine, The Huffington Post, and The Atlantic. Yuge received the Santo Foundation Individual Artist Award and Honorary Mention in the 2020 Prix Ars Electronica. She is currently an artist at NEW INC, the world’s first museum-led incubator for art, technology and design founded by New Museum in 2014.
Website: yugezhou.com
Instagram: @yugezhou
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/yugezhou
About Please Form a Straight Line
Please Form a Straight Line is a group exhibition including works by Jamal Cyrus, Maggie Evans, Benjamin Jones, Frances Lightbound, Jingjing Lin, Mark Menjivar, Jorge Villarreal and Yuge Zhou. This timely, diverse and innovative exhibition explores themes of collectivity, municipality, property, architecture, and the control and regulation of bodies. These themes intersect where they prompt viewers to consider how society is physically and existentially designed. The exhibition acts as a mirror to our current realities and a vehicle to process these experiences. The title calls to mind a range of events, from lining up in primary school, to waiting at the DMV, to more recent 6-foot safety zones and concepts around orderly or acceptable protest. The works suggest the social contracts to which we subscribe and builds a conversation around civic and social roles as individuals belonging to a greater whole.
About Blue Star Contemporary
Blue Star Contemporary (BSC) is the first and longest-running nonprofit venue for contemporary art in San Antonio. Founded by artists and grown from a grassroots art exhibition in 1986, BSC arose from the need to provide a platform for the work and ideas of contemporary artists.
As an artist-centric, educational, forward-thinking, inclusive institution that strives to exceed expectations, 30,000 residents and cultural tourists experience contemporary art with BSC each year through its exhibitions, public art projects and education programs. In 2017, BSC became the only San Antonio arts organization to be W.A.G.E.-certified, solidifying its commitment to fair compensation of artists and creative professionals.
