'In and Out of Time - Yu Hong' at the Guangdong Museum of Art, co- organized by Long March Space.

'In and Out of Time — Yu Hong' is this artist's most significant solo exhibition to date. As one of China's most celebrated female artists, Yu Hong's autobiographical approach to her art-making encapsulates, and indeed chronologically highlights, the corresponding upheavals endured by contemporary Chinese society in the last four decades. As a child who endured the reforms of the Cultural Revolution, whose attitude towards the relationship between family and society has been shaped by a country's political and economical desires, Yu Hong's varied paintings, drawings and installations offers a particularly intuitive contrast between China's past and present.

'In and Out of Time — Yu Hong' is curated by Guo Xiaoyan (Senior Curator, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing). It is organized by the Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou and co-organized by Long March Space, Beijing.

This exhibition will include not only her recent exquisite, color stained sketches on silk, these works at times encased within resin, but will also showcase two new large-scale masterpieces that have been two years in the making. These paintings take inspiration from historical works of Chinese and European classical periods. The six meter high painting, 'Ladder to the Sky' (2008) is related in subject and composition to 'The Ladder of Divine Ascent from Saint Catherine's Monastry on Mount Sinai'?— though the figures climbing this ladder to heaven are not the saintly figures of this twelfth century painting, but rather the familiar faces of Yu Hong's everyday life. In 'Romance of Spring' (2008), a work over ten meters in length, Yu Hong takes the classical Chinese Tang Dynasty painting 'The Court Ladies Preparing Newly-Woven Silk' as direct influence. In this lustrous work, Yu Hong depicts her middle-aged female confidantes as her romantic idols?— the title a particular play of words challenging ideas of time and regeneration. For Yu Hong, the search for ideas of beauty, the divine and the sacred is a relished daily task found in her immediate social community, her figures carefully rendered in colorful detail depicting each individual's strength and spirit. Also on view will be Yu Hong's entire 'Witness to Growth' series (1999-2008) of over 50 works. Taking media images from popular news stories since her birth, Yu Hong contrasts these social moments with the development of her own daughter's life, these large scale painterly and photographic images illustrating particular narratives that reflect the psychological conditions of individual survival during China's rapid period of modernization since the late 1960s.

This exhibition will also include the premier screening of?'Days about Yu Hong' a new documentary film produced by Long March Space and directed by Wang Xiaoshuai (2005 winner of Prix de Jury Prize at the 58th Cannes Film Festival for? 'Shanghai Dreams' twice winner of the Silver Bear Prize for 'Beijing Bicycle' in 2001 and?'In Love we Trust' in 2008). 'Days about Yu Hong'?will also be screened in conjunction with this exhibition along side 'The Days (Dong Chun De Rizi)'??— the very first film produced by this famed director in 1993 and incidentally Yu Hong's first documentary film.

'In and Out of Time — Yu Hong' will provide audiences with a rare opportunity to see this artists practice in-depth, allowing a purview of a woman whose imaginative gaze has subtly portrayed daily Chinese reality with a particular feminine strength. With each of her drawn and painted subjects, Yu Hong explores notions of imagined and endured identity, her paintings often daring to look destiny in the eye revealing an ongoing interest in the relationship between aspiration and reality; between a nation's socio-political motivations and the perseverance of everyday life.

'In and Out of Time — Yu Hong' will begin the Guangdong Art Museum's exhibition schedule for 2009, reflecting this institutions continual dedication and investigation of the development of contemporary Chinese art. A full-color exhibition catalog will be produced by the Guangdong Art Museum, published by Hebei Art Education Publishing House. 'In and Out of Time — Yu Hong' is a traveling exhibition with a second, yet to be confirmed venue in Beijing.