Dionisio GONZÁLEZ – Lauren MARSOLIER – Yang Yi June 26 – August 23, 2014
Galerie Richard is pleased to present a group photography exhibition of works by artists Dionisio González, Lauren Marsolier and Yang Yi. The gallery has chosen to exhibit the first three photographers ever presented in their New York space. The exhibition will run through August 23rd, 2014 in the viewing room.
Exhibited are works from Spanish artist Dionisio González from his Halong Series. The artist takes on the role of both photographer and architect by digitally urbanizing the free waters surrounding the Vietnamese islands in Halong Bay. The result is a marine city featuring a mix of ordinary boathouses with modernist architecture. The new modernist constructions suggest a foreign influence without completely disrupting the original cultural identity unique to Vietnam. Each house is attributed with a distinctive personality reflective of the occupants, defying the usual idea of urban development. González is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Universidad de Sevilla. His works are represented in prominent collections such as the Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges-Pompidou in Paris and his work has been exhibited in many notable institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago among others.
Los Angeles-based artist Lauren Marsolier presents works from Transition, a series of digital compositions, deftly and patiently elaborated, assembling pieces from thousands of images taken in various separate locations. These photographs stimulate the unconscious and the subjectivity of the viewer. They feature a world becoming more than ever a construction of the mind, with its increasing virtuality, hyper-reality and overall artificiality. There is a harmony of proportions between the constructed and the organic, balancing the exacting proportions between internal space and the infinite bright expanse of the land. We gradually become aware that each element has been manipulated to be part of a perfect geometrical composition. This perfection contributes to the sensation of malaise and uneasiness, facing a sort of unreality. French-born Marsolier was the recipient of the 2012 Photo Center North West award and the 2013 Houston enter for Photography Fellowship. Her images have been published internationally and the British Journal of Photography featured her as one of ‘20 photographers to watch in 2013’.
Chinese artist Yang Yi was born in Kaixian in 1971, a small town overlooking a tributary of the Yangtze River. In 2009 Yang’s hometown was completely submerged underwater due to the Three Gorges Dam Project, which displaced over 1.2 million people and destroyed 11 cities. Using photography with digital editing techniques, Yang creates strikingly truthful portrayals of Kaixan and its inhabitants in a submarine universe. The artist captures and preserves the nuances that once distinguished this beloved village as an expression of defiance to imposed plight and destitution. Inspired by dreams, the visual documentation opposes the physical reality of the expropriated site. The confrontation between the past and present transforms the topology of the landscape into a place of curiosity and apprehension. Yang’s series records a haunting legacy that proves the fortitude of the human spirit. The Uprooted series has been recently exhibited at the San Jose Museum of Art, California and the Katonah Museum of Art, New York in the exhibition “Rising Dragon – Contemporary Chinese Photography.” Yang Yi has exhibited throughout Asia, Europe, Canada and Mexico.