Liu Wa and Yang Bao | Savage Confessions

Liu Wa is a multimedia artist who explores questions of boundaries, power and intersubjectivity through installation, video, painting and assemblage sculpture. Trained in anthropology, she seeks to decentralize human’s dominant role in knowledge production and world-making through a multi-species lens. Her works create multi-sensory experiences that heighten the audience’s sensuous receptivity to the more-than-human world. Liu’s research draws on the subjectivity and plasticity of human perception in neuroscience, and reimagines human agency at a time when emotions and desires could be quantified, predicted and affected through technology. Built upon post-humanism, her interdisciplinary practice interrogates the power dynamics between humanity and technology within a broader web of life.

Liu Wa (b. 1994) received her B.A. in Anthropology and Art from Yale University and is pursuing her M.S. in Art, Culture and Technology at MIT. She won the International Emmy Awards Young Creatives Award, Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list, Porsche Young Chinese Artist of the Year, among other honors. She was nominated to participate in international exhibits, such as Busan Biennale (2020) and Guangzhou Triennial (2018). Her works have been globally exhibited at prestigious institutions including UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, TANK Shanghai, Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, Javits Convention Center of New York, Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, M Woods Museum, Today Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, Guangdong Museum of Art, etc. Liu’s solo presentations include: Late Night Savage (Cc Foundation, Shanghai, 2021), SOUNDMASS (TANK Shanghai, 2021), Hear A Century Ahead (No.1 Waitanyuan, Shanghai, 2021), Moon Milk (MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai, 2020), Glimpse (Asia Now, Paris, 2019), Glimpse: a passing look (Sabsay Gallery, Copenhagen, 2018).

Yang Bao is a cross-disciplinary artist, composer and pianist based in New York, classically trained in piano performance at The Juilliard School and New England Conservatory of Music with Wha-Kyung Byun and Bruce Brubaker. Bao’s multi-media works create an experiential “synthesis of the arts” that is precise in texture while hypnotizing in motion. Inspired by classical music and post-human minimalism, his sensory-based “physical music” condenses complex emotions into poetic fables. Further enhanced by film and technology, Bao’s visceral and immediate music takes the audience out of their everyday life into a boundless void where anyone can design one’s own reality and live it.

In his live performance SOUNDMASS at TANK Shanghai, Bao created a site-specific and ever-evolving soundscape that transformed the gigantic oil tank into an architectural instrument. He materialized the intangible music into a sonic monument that constantly devours and regenerates itself. In his sound installation Hear A Century Ahead commissioned by LOUIS XIII, Bao’s spatial-audio composition Infinity Music—GODSPEED mutates and refracts in infinity according to the progression of time and chance within the large metal installations. His original soundtrack The Kitty Knight for the major feature film I Am What I Am was globally released and well-received in 2022. His film DUALISM for composer Kaija Saariaho’s Graal Theatre was exclusively featured on Apple Music. Bao’s solo shows and projects include: Hear A Century Ahead (No.1 Waitanyuan, Shanghai, 2021), SOUNDMASS (Tank Shanghai, 2021), Late Night Savage (Cc Foundation, Shanghai, 2021).

Bao has frequently performed at prestigious venues, such as Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Lincoln Center in New York, Jordan Hall in Boston, and Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing. His recent concerts include Chopin Piano Concerto No.1 with China Philharmonic Orchestra in their Spring 2022 Concert Season.

Goethe-Institut Boston will host a panel with the two artists, Liu Wa & Yang Bao, as well as Gediminas Urbonas and Bruce Brubaker.

Liu Wa is a multimedia artist who explores questions of boundaries, power and intersubjectivity through installation, video, painting and assemblage sculpture. She seeks to decentralize human’s dominant role in knowledge production and world-making through a multi-species lens. Liu Wa received her B.A. in Anthropology and Art from Yale University and is pursuing her M.S. in Art, Culture and Technology at MIT. She won the International Emmy Awards Young Creatives Award, Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list, Porsche Young Chinese Artist of the Year, and participated in Busan Biennale and Guangzhou Triennial.

Yang Bao is an artist, composer and pianist based in New York, classically trained in piano performance at The Juilliard School and New England Conservatory of Music. Bao’s multi-media works create an experiential “synthesis of the arts” that is precise in texture while hypnotizing in motion, inspired by classical music and post-human minimalism. Bao’s works have been exhibited at prestigious museums including TANK Shanghai and commissioned by international brands such as LOUIS XIII. Bao has frequently performed at Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Lincoln Center in New York, Jordan Hall in Boston, and Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing.

 Gediminas Urbonas is an artist, educator and professor at the Art, Culture and Technology program at MIT. He is the co-founder of Urbonas Studio (with Nomeda Urbonas), an interdisciplinary research practice that facilitates exchange amongst diverse nodes of knowledge production and artistic practice in pursuit of projects that transform civic spaces and collective imaginaries. Urbonas have exhibited internationally including the São Paulo, Berlin, Moscow, Lyon, Gwangju, Busan Biennales, Folkestone Triennial, Manifesta, Documenta exhibitions, including solo shows at the Venice Biennale and MACBA in Barcelona.

Bruce Brubaker is a visionary virtuoso, an artistic provocateur, and the Chair of Piano Department at New England Conservatory of Music. Brubaker’s work uses and combines Western classical music with postmodern artistic, literary, theatrical, and philosophical ideas. With more than 125 million streams on Spotify, Bruce Brubaker reaches a large and diverse audience. According to Pitchfork: “Bruce Brubaker is one of the most exciting pianists in the contemporary American classical scene.” Brubaker has performed with Meredith Monk, Nico Muhly, and John Cage.