Best Practices: Lu Yang’s Otherworldly Avatars Imagine New Possibilities for the Body

By Alex Greenberger

Five years ago, Lu Yang made a genderless rendering of himself the protagonist of Lu Yang Delusional Mandala, a 2015 video in which the artist’s avatar wears a baseball cap and dances through a computer-generated version of outer space. Not that the figure is carefree. The viewer is given to understand that there is a tumor in the avatar’s brain, and at times it seems to be in pain. At various points in the 16-minute piece, it is probed by diagnostic machines. The avatar dies and lives again numerous times, and ultimately ends up suspended in an enormous mandala.

Speaking by Zoom recently from his studio in Shanghai, Lu said that, with that video, he wanted to make a version of himself that was free of the constraints of gender and sexuality. “I really don’t like to have some label for gender placed upon myself,” he said. “I am just a human being—that’s all. When we go out, people think, ‘Oh, you’re a male, you’re a female.’ People always judge you. But actually, when we are alone, we don’t really think about who we are and what kind of gender we are. That body,” he continued, referring to his avatar, “is the perfect body for me.”

Books in Lu Yang’s studio. Davd Tacon for ARTnews

Being alone is something Lu has come to embrace—especially during the coronavirus pandemic. In his mid-30s, he is one of the world’s most visible emerging artists, and by the time everything shut down, he’d gotten used to frequent travel. One of the foremost members of a new generation of artists working with digital technology, he has shown his work at the Venice Biennale, as well as festivals from Moscow to Istanbul; a typical year involves getting on a plane every two months. But since March he’s been confined to his two-floor studio in Shanghai. “That brings me more time to polish my work,” he said...READ MORE

Cover Image: Lu Yang with his pug Biabia in his Shanghai studio.Dave Tacon for ARTnews