David Yu
- Michael Hanna
- Jun 13
- 3 min read
David Yu is a performance artist as well as an installation and multimedia creator who has exhibited throughout North America and Europe. Countries David has exhibited include Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Belgium, Ireland, Greece, France, Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, Portugal, and Cuba. His most recent exhibitions include Casa da Dona Laura in Lisbon, Portugal, London Ontario Media Arts Association, Galerie Nicolas Robert in Toronto ,and Prague Biennale Projekt. David has won numerous grant awards from the Ontario Arts Council and he has participated in residencies in Canada, Africa, and Europe.
Every aspect of David’s work has a performative angle, including his multimedia and installation projects. One consistent theme throughout David’s work would be a notion of individual as well as collective desensitization. From surfing on his mobile phone on top of objects to casting spotlights on figures to having disconnected actors engage with a gallery audience along an installation, David often has a confrontational approach to his work. His methods could be described as fluxus in nature as the process and sense of improvisation holds value to him, such as creating an installation of a tower-like structure with folded towels in a hotel room or performing seizure-like behavior on a gallery floor.
David’s performances and installations often communicate a concept of distance from other people as well as society. The cold, monochromatic installations often form methodically in geometrical planes while others are completely improvisational such as a pair of empty shoes with the words ‘this could be you’. As a performance artist, David imbues societal expectations with individual nihilism and angst. His works could be described as a clash between suburbia and urban environments as he conveys the centrality of the individual within a defined space, such as a gallery. As such, he conveys a sense of concern for his behavior towards the audience reflecting a suburban attitude while displaying city-inspired distance in the spatial intervals of his performances, objects, and installations to each other.
X-in-Waiting (pictured above) involves one of David’s most recent works. The performance entails David browsing his phone while laying on top of objects as if he were a sculpture. For example, he will have an object hold his neck as he lays vertically off of a bathroom sink surfing the web on his back or sitting on top of a kitchen sink and counter as if the surface were a bed, while on the phone. He wears a surgical mask in some of the scenes, reflecting the Covid-19 pandemic, and even though there are no other actors to interact with. David further conceptualizes the performance by streaming the performative actions to users via an application on their phone.
David Yu brings relevance to performance art as an artform with deep inclinations towards sensory experiences as opposed to strictly based on narrative or concepts. His abstract communicative actions convey the disconnect between the audience and the artist, the subject and the viewer. His body of work can be described as a metaphor for relationships between individuals as well as our collective identity against civilization. Performance remains one of the most exciting artforms available today based on limitless potential, being outside of linear narrative. David Yu exemplifies how interacting object, performance, concept, and interaction with a live as well as digital audience can create a highly communicative experience in the arts.
