Yang Fudong’s “Sparrow on the Sea” drifts like a fugue. Commissioned for the LED façade of M+ museum in Hong Kong, the silent, black-and-white film now plays in L.A. with full sound, anchored in a dream logic that warps memory and time. Three actors of different generations share one protagonist, a man adrift—literal and metaphysical—with a leaky suitcase and nowhere to land. Yang conjures poetry from elliptical narrative, ghostly cityscapes, and chiaroscuro shimmer. Huge film stills and modest mixed media works extend the film’s porous reality into the darkened bowels of the gallery. Like a sparrow crossing water, meaning hovers just out of reach, delicately, beautifully unresolved.

Yang Fudong: Sparrow on the Sea
Marian Goodman Gallery
1128 Seward St.,
Los Angeles, CA 90038
On view through July 26, 2025