UNDUN
Asia Now 2019

Steeped in skateboard and underground culture, Eugène Riconneaus rose to fame at just 19 years old. Early on he exhibited his painting and photography in collaboration with ARTE and director-photographer Larry Clark, in which he explored a new esoteric, erotic and forbidden dimension of eternal adolescence.

His photography recounts every detail of the Parisian skateboarding scene, especially the ground riddled with traces of skate wheels which he names “The Bondage of French Marble”. Those enigmatic skateboard traces have become an obsession for him, often superimposed onto photos of places and his friends.

Since 2015, Eugène uses his own skateboard wheels as a brush and his canvas is no longer regular but a reversed half-pipe shape inspired by the skateboarding ramp, which leads the viewer to wander around the painting and examine its different angles. In trips to Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo and Bangkok, Eugène has also contemplated and recorded the impact of social media on Asian millennials, employing various media to show how the digital world has shaped the new aesthetics and lifestyle of Generation Y.

The second part of the exhibition is dedicated to the collaboration between Eugene and Paris-based Chinese artist Xiangyu Liu. Xiangyu Liu is primarily a fashion photographer boasting a portfolio from publications such as Antidote, Replica, Modern Weekly, Dazed and Wallpaper.

The fusion of Xiangyu’s natural knack for capturing the beauty of spontaneity and Eugene’s intimate understanding of youth culture create images that are true reflections of today’s world.