Yi Zhou - RH Gallery - March 6th 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

RH Gallery is pleased to present Underworlds Rising, the first New York solo exhibition of
Chinese artist Yi Zhou, opening on March 6 and on view through April 27, 2012. The exhibition is built around Zhou’s short film, The Greatness (2010), which was inspired by Dante’s pilgrimage in The Divine Comedy. Zhou’s 3-D animated film begins with a Grecian vase modeled after Pharrell Williams’ head shattering into pieces and follows a journey through the artist’s imaginary, timeless underworld. The exhibition will include four new sculptures referencing objects featured in the film, including a coelacanth fish swallowing a whole human heart and a pair of hands holding a bridge. Like many of Zhou’s multimedia installations, Underworlds Rising blends film, digital animation,
photography, sculpture, painting, drawing, and contemporary music composition.
Yi Zhou mines her own experiences for content as she attempts to revive colors and light from the sensations of dreams. In transforming the language of her subconscious to film, Zhou’s imagery becomes characterized by its ethereal qualities. Zhou’s multicultural background informs her artistic practice, which references both Eastern and Western cultures. Anchored to a Chinese sense of nostalgia, her work is also rooted in a vibrant curiosity in Surrealist principles: the resulting images unfold in uncanny visual sequences and incongruous juxtapositions. In The Greatness, Zhou propels the viewer through space with a haunting soundtrack produced in collaboration with renowned Italian composer Ennio Morricone.
Yi Zhou was born in Shanghai and raised in Hangzhou and Rome. Zhou currently lives between Paris and Shanghai. Zhou has been exhibiting her work internationally since 2002 throughout Europe, Asia and Russia. The Greatness was selected for the Shorts Program at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. A solo exhibition of her work was presented as a collateral exhibition for the Venice Biennale in 2011.
In 2008, she was commissioned to make a work of art for the Place Vendôme in Paris. Her work has been included in several museum exhibitions including the Shanghai Biennale at the Shanghai Art Museum and Chinese Video Art at the Minsheng Museum, Shanghai.
Additional exhibition venues include Maison Rouge, Chicago Cultural Center, Guangdong Museum of Art, Maison Européenne de la Photographie and Palais de Tokyo. Zhou has also collaborated on numerous creative projects that synthesize art, film, fashion and music with Diane Von Furstenberg, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Pharrell Williams, Clotilde Courau and Jackie Chan among others.