The title of the publication is taken from Duan Jianyu’s most recent body of work, Yúqiáo, a term that translates as “the fisherman and the woodcutter.” This duo recurs as a motif in Chinese literati painting and philosophy dating back to the eleventh century. Traditionally imagined as two reclusive figures dwelling along rivers and foothills, they serve as wise observers who reflect on the human condition from a contemplative distance. Yúqiáo embodies a unity of thought and practice, offering a holistic cosmology that views time, nature and history with a transcendent, non-binary perspective.

Duan reinterprets this classic motif through her own lens, drawn not to its lofty symbolism but to its overlooked mundanity and narrative potential. She weaves layered, nonlinear narratives where archetypes evolve and diverge, drawing freely and equally from disparate styles and influences. This creates a visual grammar that mirrors the disjointed, nonlinear fabric of contemporary lived experience.

By unleashing Yúqiáo from its classical framework and replanting it in the textures of everyday life, Duan invites reflection on the quiet wisdom embedded in daily experience amid a fractured global reality. For Duan, Yúqiáo lives in all of us—whether in an old goat telling stories to their kid, goats questioning the shepherd about their fate, a black cat detective pursuing a deeply personal vision of justice or a folkloric tale quietly proposing another way of being. The reclusive philosopher is not distant but finds refuge in the world’s absurdities, its humour, its irrepressible aliveness.

Published on occasion of the exhibition  “Duan Jianyu: Yúqíao” at YDP, the catalogue features contributions by Yan Du, Yang Zi, Bang Wang and Lydia Yee, as well as an interview with the artist conducted in March 2025. The publication has been designed by Studio Pianpian He and Max Harvey. 

Co-published by YDP and Mousse Publishing, distributed by Mousse Publishing. Available at https://www.moussemagazine.it/shop/duan-jianyu-yuqiao/

Language: English
Size (folded): 32.5 × 25 cm
Pages: 60 (color)
Year: 2025

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[About the Artist]

Born in 1970 in Zhengzhou, Henan province, Duan Jianyu graduated from the oil painting department at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art in 1995. She lives in Guangzhou.

Duan Jianyu’s works recall a boundary that is mentally non-tangible in our daily lives, yet they precisely recall the feeling of living in contemporary China under globalization. Duan Jianyu strives for the most generic subjects matter and she delves into banal expression and style, and very much about life in the present tense. Her painting grows from its proto-concept and outline of different modes of living into a painted reality. Continuously impacted, resisted, altered and formed by the pictures that emerge from different influences, situations and awarenesses, this reality has the same complexity as the material reality before us. Duan Jianyu wanders the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, so-called narrative follows the logic of painting itself, and unknown experiences open up.

Photo: Zexin; Text: YDP