YOD Gallery is delighted to present Li-Ren Chang's Classic Skin Flick series, the first solo exhibition in Japan for the Taiwanese media artist. This exhibition comprises of a series of seven works including new works.

While Chang was at Tainan National University of the Arts after successfully graduated from National Taiwan University of Arts, he has started to produce this award winning series of works, titled "Classic Skin Flick". Having won three prestigious awards, this series of works was exposed at the the Taipei Fine Art Museum and Shanghai Art Museum which had grown his reputation rapidly. Since then, his works have been exhibited at the museums in Beijing in China and Gyeongsangnam-do in Korea.

The idea to create Classic Skin Flick series is inspired by porn movies shown in a small screen beside the goverment's propaganda films which were shown in the main screen 1949 to 1987 under martial law in Taiwan. The screen for porn movie was made smaller in order to avoid the inspection by the military police. People abstained from activities which violate government regulations. "Exemplary life" was born out of this political situation as if people and the government had coordinated. Being aware of such fakery and contradiction in people's life, Chang expresses his skepticism toward such "Exemplary life". Such point of view is reflected in his works which reveal a naked body in classic paintings whilst suggesting the process of exposing of true self. 

For instance, the work which deliberately alters the identity of shepherdess in Bergère avec son troupeau by Jean-François Millet. The shepherdess in this painting is being made naked through the medium of animation and in the end, only the naked body and landscape appears. Her body is painted in the manner that enhances her physique, which evokes viewer's desire and her existence becomes even more realistic for the viewers through the experience of seeing this animated painting. Though her true identity is unknown (One theory holds that she was a model), she is certainly not a shepherdess after being made naked in the field. This detachment of subject from the background image suggests change of her identity in the painting and deliberate alteration. Through this series of works, Chang tries to reveal the process of such deliberate change of identity in order to question the culture of "Exemplary life" people adopted.