Heavenly City

Yang Yongliang combines urban photography with the iconic visual language of traditional Chinese painting in a most intriguing way. Looked at more closely, his landscapes – in series like On the Quiet Water, Phantom Landscape and Heavenly City – are composed of apartment buildings and hoisting cranes. Yet they exude the restfulness of mountains and forests, of clouds in the sky. Yang Yongliang himself says “My wonderland is a mysterious place, the ideal for which we have been striving, and that we have in many respects already attained. Our life is easy there, fast, and let’s be honest about it, comfortable. But never forget the price we have paid for this wonderland.”