Over two and a half years in the making, Desire – Loss, the much anticipated new series of paintings, juxtaposes imagery from Chinese propaganda posters from the 1960s with nostalgic images of America from 1950s and 1960s, constructing from these idealized images commentaries upon the complex relations that exist between present day China and the United States.
Using the techniques and iconography of his earlier work, the Desire – Loss works also incorporate Yung’s characteristic dark humour but are altogether less playful. Whilst contemplative of Yung’s position as a Chinese American artist, the politicization inherent in the Desire – Loss works marks an evolution Yung’s practice. Employing idealized images of American and Chinese men, women and children alongside objects of desire, absent figures and cultural icons such as Mickey Mouse, these visual ciphers are suggestive of the elements of prosperity and tragedy, aspiration and scarcity that signify the demise of the American Dream and the rise of Chinese aspiration and the complex mechanisms that regulate the relationship between desire and loss.
Larry Yung is a contemporary Chinese American artist who was born in Korea and has lived in the United States from an early age. Yung trained at the San Francisco Academy of Art, winning its prestigious Gold Award in 1985. Throughout his career, Yung has held numerous sellout exhibitions in New York, San Francisco, Stockholm, Amsterdam as well as in Hong Kong. His work has been commissioned by Proctor & Gamble, Pierre Cardin and Nordstroms and is held in various private collections including those of Marvel Comics, Esquire Magazine and Bill Gates. Yung’s work has also been exhibited in various museums including the Alternative Museum, New York, the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, the Berkeley Art Center and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.
