Mo Yi

Supported by an exhibition at Les Rencontres d'Arles in 2024, to be followed by an international tour, this is the first retrospective of one of China's most important photographic artists.

Mo Yi is a photographic artist with a career spanning nearly forty years, from the 1980s to today. This retrospective contextualizes his work within the evolution of contemporary art following reform and opening in China in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. Working in a documentary tradition, but building on and reinterpreting the meaning of “documentary”, Mo Yi’s practice is exemplified by experimentation. Regularly creating work in distinct series, he has continually tested ways of extending the boundaries of the medium and his own personal expression.

This publication, supported by his first exhibition outside of China, surveys Mo Yi’s experimentation in photographic production and performance over the course of his career. Organized into five chronological chapters that mark the milestones of Mo Yi’s journey as an artist, each introduced by Holly Roussell, the book presents the key projects and series, created through an era of great change and upheaval in China. A restless innovator of photographic practice and form, Mo Yi has combined documentary photography of daily life in Beijing with the exploratory and performative aspects for which his work has become renowned, shifting from the dynamic black and white images of his earlier practice to the vivid red that becomes a recurring motif in his later color work.

With text contributions from Christoph Wiesner, Director of Les Rencontres d’Arles, and Philip Tinari, Director of UCCA, this book will introduce one of China’s most important, yet virtually unknown artists to international audiences for the first time.