Person
Artist
Yang Fudong
杨福东
Date of birth
1971
Place Of birth
Beijing, China
Biography
Born in 1971 in Beijing, the artist now lives and works in Shanghai. Initially, he chose to study (oil painting) at the China Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou - “because it was in the south and more liberal than its equally eminent counterpart (CAFA) in Beijing”. In 1996 he enrolled in some photography classes at the Beijing Central Academy. In 1997 he needed to make a living and went to Shanghai, where he learned to use a computer. "I hated computers because I was an oil painter," he said of the period following his graduation. Yang Fudong’s day job was making video games, but his heart was in shooting digital videos. Eventually the artist was fired from his job. "My boss liked my work, but I took too much leave. He gave me three months' compensation pay and said, `Now you can work on your art full time.' "
