Yi Zhou
| Yi Zhou | |
|---|---|
| Born | Shanghai, China |
| Known for | Chinese artist |
Yi Zhou is a Chinese artist, featuring her own 3D filming and for her collaborations with the fashion industry. She lived in Rome from the age of ten and studied between London and Paris with degrees in Political Science and Economics.[1] Her work has been shown at some of Film Festival.[2]
Yi Zhou was named as the one of those artist to endorse a beauty brand: Clarins, from 2010 to 2011. The brand has also sponsored the Venice Biennale solo collateral show of Yi Zhou during the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011.[3] Since 2012, she has collaborated with brands such as Italian luxury eyewear brand, Persol[4] and Italian luxury brand, Hogan.[5]
She has also collaborated with the French couture jewelry house Gripoix; a first artist-collection entitled "Pineapple's Secret".[6] Her animations have inspired clothing collection by the French hip brand, Each x Other.[7]
Since 2010 she has relocated back to China and founded her studio and production company in Shanghai. Yi Zhou is a modern-day Chinese Hitchcock, Yoko Ono and Cindy Sherman, described by Vogue China.[8] Currently, Yi Zhou is also Tudou.com’s (Chinese would-be YouTube) art-director [9] and serves as art and fashion advisory member at Sina.com (which owns Chinese twitter), which owns Chinese twitter (Sina Weibo).
DVF 2011
DVF 2011[10] is a 3D animated portrait by Yi Zhou that originated as a commissioned piece for Diane von Fürstenberg. In a dreamlike sequence, Diane von Furstenberg blows out of her mouth in an anachronological order female icons such as Audrey Hepburn, Maggie Cheung, Michelle Obama, Wonder Woman, Marlene Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, Angelina Jolie, Charlotte Casiraghi, Mother Teresa, and even Diane von Furstenberg herself.
This work was premiered at Diane von Furstenberg's exhibition in 2011 at The Pace Gallery Beijing, entitled Diane von Furstenberg: Journey of a Dress. Instead of painting or photographing Diane for her portrait, Yi conceived of and created an original video work, music by Ennio Morricone, as a moving 3D portrait featuring Diane as an iconic figure from whose mouth other icons escape.
1280 Towers — Place Vendôme
When the Commité Vendôme, at the beginning of 2006, proposed Yi Zhou to create a public project for Place Vendôme, she based her reflection on the symbolic meaning of the Vendôme Column that gave its name to the square. Created in response to this symbol of sovereign power, Yi Zhou’s project is composed of two 8 meter-high columns, located on a diagonal axis with the Vendôme Column as the central point.[11] Each of these two columns are composed of 1280 small towers that are placed on a circular line next to each other, oscillating between the idea of emptiness and fullness. Their shape, inspired by the Chinese chopsticks, evokes the multitude of Chinese population and its constant growing, and refers to an induced geopolitical signification. Like a human chain in which the feminine alternates with the masculine, the fullness with the emptiness held in a collective initiative that starts in each unity.
Built on the pattern of the infinite spiral, 1280 Towers continue the history of art and humanity started with the Tower of Babel that is more recently reincarnated by Brancusi’s Endless Column and Tatlin’s Monument for the 3rd International tower. Despite very different metaphoric significations, all these artworks symbolize the multitude, the universal, and the infinite.
Collaborations
Yi Zhou has been selected by Sundance Film Festival four consecutive times. Since 2010, Yi Zhou has been appointed as art director of Tudou.com and she has suggested the initiative of bridging Sundance Institute members with 2011 Tudou Video Festival and with China.
Yi Zhou also developed a series of online moving portraits of key international players in the movie/fashion/art industries, posted on Tudou.com and Weibo.com. This project not only introduces these celebrities to the Chinese twitter user, but also shows Yi Zhou's approach to her work as a multimedia artist by creating these portraits for the social media only.
The same attempt can also be seen in the social media play that Yi Zhou has performed in September 2011, a short film featuring herself and Nicola Formichetti with the attempt of international attention to emerging Chinese fashion designers' works.
References
- ↑ "YI ZHOU: SHANGHAI SURPRISE". Paris Match. March 2011.
- ↑ "Each x Other Screens Short Film at Cannes". WWD. May 24, 2013.
- ↑ Celia Ellenberg (June 10, 2011). "Meet Clarins’ Ambassador Artist". Style.com.
- ↑ "Beauty is in the details-Murmur Woods". Wmagazine.com. April 2012.
- ↑ "Hogan Taps Artist Yi Zhou For "Interactive Lives" Short Film". Jing Daily. November 2012.
- ↑ "Fruit Forward: Artist Yi Zhou's Nature-Inspired Jewelry Collaboration with Gripoix". Vogue.com. September 2012.
- ↑ "Each x Other Screens Short Film at Cannes". WWD. May 24, 2013.
- ↑ "Chanel The Little Black Jacket". Vogue China. May 2012.
- ↑ Nancy Zhang (May 11, 2011). "Zhou Yi: China's video artist comes home". CNNgo.
- ↑ Michael Reyes (April 2011). "DVF as Merchant, Martyr in Beijing". Art in America Magazine.
- ↑ "Sculpture place Vendome Paris Yi Zhou 1280 Tower". 2009.