GE YU LU
Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2019
GE YU LU, 2017
Photo: Takeshi Hirabayashi
Visitors may have encountered a road sign reading "葛宇路" (pronounced "ge yu lu") outside the venue. "路" is the Chinese character for "road" or "street," so one may think that the sign indicates the name of a street. However "Ge Yu Lu" is in fact the name of the artist, and at the same time also the title of his work.
The artist installed the road sign bearing his own name in an unnamed road in central Beijing, and for several years it remained at the place. The name appeared in Chinese GPS-based map services, and as an address in records such as home delivery services' invoices. This action of an ordinary citizen became widely known through news reports on the Internet and television, after which the Chinese authorities removed the sign immediately. The entire story is documented on various media.
On a side note, companies offering map services in Japan employ investigators that walk around and observe nameplates and signboards to be reflected in their respective companies' maps.
GE Yulu
- Born 1990 in Wuhan, China
- Based in Beijing, China
Ge Yulu graduated from the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, School of Animation, Studio for Video Media Majors and from the Central Academy of Fine Arts School of Experimental Art. His work explores the theme of individual resistance in the public space. For GE YU LU (Road), the artist named anonymous streets in Beijing after himself, a play on his own name which ends with the Chinese character for road. Ge installed unauthorized street signs, and by mid-2015 Chinese online map services had, in swift succession, registered "Ge Yu Lu" as an official street name. His work raises questions surrounding public spaces: Who owns them? What functions exist within them and for what purpose? How are they governed? How is our world constructed and how are we permitted participation in it? By following the full development of Ge's interventions, the viewer encounters the elusive mechanisms that dictate the public space.
Selected Works & Awards
| 2018 | Culture City of East Asia 2018 Kanazawa, Altering Home, Ishikawa, Japan |
| 2018 | 1st Borderless Art Season, Fei Art Museum, Guangzhou, China |
| 2018 | Exhibition of Annual of Contemporary Art of China, Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, China |
| 2017 | 4th Documentary Exhibition of Fine Arts, Stress Field, Hubei Museum of Art, Wuhan, China |
| 2016 | 3rd CAFAM Biennial, Negotiating Space: I Never Thought You Were Like That, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China |
Map
Sites of former shops in Endoji Ginzagai
Address
Open
(Fri-21:00)
Admission until
15 minutes
before closing
Closed
Access
・9 minutes on foot from Kokusai Center Station on the Sakura-dori Subway Line.
・14 minutes on foot from Nagoya Station.