Yao Qingmei’ s performance video A Piece of Red Cloth comprises of two video parts, one in a state of motion, whilst the other is relatively stationary. An indefatigable figure runs through different urban and natural settings holding a piece of red cloth in a series of small-scale performance interventions. Embodying this image of triumph and glory like a stubborn idealist, she continuous flies the ‘flag’ in a fashion that animates an anxiety and recalls a mood similarly felt within the lyrics of the Cui Jian song ‘A Piece of Red Cloth Blocked My Eyes’.

Yao Qingmei (b.1982, Zhejiang) currently lives and works in Wenzhou and Paris. She achieved DNSEP with honors from Villa Arson, Nice, France in 2013, and was awarded the winner of Prix spécial du jury at the 59th Salon de Montrouge in 2014, the Prize “Young Chinese Artist of the Year” in 2017 and the 68th Prix Jeune Création of Paris in 2018.

Yao Qingmei’s practice traverses the boundary between performance and its site, frequently enacting intervention in public space to perturb the parameters of its reality and surroundings. Her art is deep-rooted in a critical reflection into the formulation of political and social questions, exploring how symbolic gestures gain or lose power through forms of appropriation and displacement. Here, humor plays an important role in her work, using the poetics of comedy to expose the absurdity of a particular issue. Offering different methods of resistance, her theatrical performances and interventions find their form in an area overlapping burlesque traditions of satire and parody, which combine with framing devices influenced by theatre sets and costume, pedagogical lectures, the dialectic between image and text, choreography inspired by modern dance.

Major solo exhibitions include: The Tetrachromatic Dream of the Dichromats, Paris, FR (2018); The Ecdysiast, Magician Space, Beijing, CN (2017); Professor Yao, OCAT Xi’an, Shaanxi, CN (2016); Recrute Mendicant/ SDF pour une foire d’art contemporain, Marseilles, FR (2015); One Hour Occupy Parking Lot, Paradise, Nante, FR (2015); Professor Yao, Magician Space, Beijing, CN (2015); Vernissage Nouvelles Expos, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FR (2014).

Major group exhibitions, screenings and performances include: Artists’ Film International, Whitechapel Gallery, London, GB (2020); Factories, Machines and the Poet’s Words: Echoes of the Realities in Art, 798 Art Zone Buildings, Beijing, CN (2019); Bicycle Thieves, Para Site, Hong Kong, CN (2019); The Racing Will Continue, The Dancing Will Stay, Guangdong Times Museum, Guangdong, CN (2019); China Land Scape: Selections from the Taikang Collection 2019, Beijing, CN (2019); One Rehearsal (Performance), CACHE, Beijing, CN (2018); New Metallurgists, Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf, DE (2018); Respire-Works from the Lemaitre Video Art Collection, Herzliya Museum of Conyemporary Art, Herzliya, IL (2018); Brace for Impact, De Appel Curatorial Programme, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NL (2018); NOW: A Dialogue on Female Chinese Contemporary Artists, Co-organised by CAFA Art Museum, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, and Tate Research Centre: Asia, UK (2018); The New Normal: Art and China in 2017, UCCA, Beijing, CN (2017); Yes I can! Un Portrait du Pouvoir, Centre d’art Contemporain Walter Benjamin, Perpignan, FR (2016); JCE Biennale 2015-2017, Kunstbygningen Museum, Vra, Denmark (2016); Le Commerce de la Parole, Museum Rochechouart, Rochechouart, FR (2014); La Comedie de l’Art, Fondation de Doute, Ville de Blois, FR (2014); 59e Salon de Montrouge, Ville de Montrouge, Montrouge, FR (2014).