500 grams of gold, made into 1000 pieces of rice, yellow can be really beautiful, heartwarming.
The current price of gold is about 470 yuan per gram, and it is estimated that this 500 grams of gold is worth about 230,000 yuan.
But someone told you that the rice was going to be thrown into the Huangpu River one by one. You can't stand hearing that.
In addition to calling out to pity, waste? Putting on a show? Play for the gallery? Performance artist? All kinds of words will come to mind. Because this thing is really not what the average person understands.
Recently, there is a middle-aged uncle on the Internet who is particularly hot, he grabbed a handful of golden rice in one hand on World Food Day, some threw it into the garbage bin, and some threw it into the sea.
Such behavior naturally attracted a lot of attention, and soon became a hot search on Weibo, and everyone scolded him.
In the face of the reporter's interview, producer Yang Yeqiu confessed his thoughts: "Gold thrown into the Huangpu River is not a waste, because it comes from the land itself. It is a real shame that the rice is dumped. ”
In the face of various noises, he also said: "Different people have different views on this matter, and the level of acceptance is also different, and I understand it." ”
Gray and white hair, ordinary clothes, what is the origin of this middle-aged man? Is he really taking advantage of the opportunity to hype? Or do you want to advertise for free?
In fact, Yang Yeqiu is a famous performance artist in Shanghai, the founder of an advertising creative company, and is 48 years old.
In fact, using performance art irony, this is not the first time he has done it.
In November 2012, he once did a "LV is only worth 100 yuan!" LV only sells for 100 yuan! Performance Art. On that day, he took more than 100 LV to Shanghai SOHO Century Plaza and sold them to the public at a price of 100 yuan, attracting the attention and looting of a large number of consumers.
What may seem like a loss-making transaction is actually a performance art about a discussion of value.
The world knows that Chinese love luxury goods the most, and often queue up abroad to snap up luxury goods.
The survey found that 80%-90% of consumers did not buy because they liked a product, they bought it purely to show off.
Upon learning of this result, Yang Yezhong made this theme, and he "hopes to use this performance art to calm down the fanatical consumers." "Guide the Chinese people's luxury consumption from fanaticism to rationality."
Of course, this time also attracted criticism and criticism.
In the face of controversy, he has his own opinion, he believes: "Throughout the ages, all valuable works will be controversial, the sound of controversy represents value, the public will reflect in controversy, grow in controversy, and progress in controversy." ”
It should be said that Yang Yezhong has always been a different person, with rebellion and ambition, likes to take risks, and has also brought many surprises.
He combined contemporary art and advertising to form his own unique style. It is very well-known in the advertising industry in Shanghai.
Yang Yezhong, born in Taizhou, Zhejiang, settled in Nanjing with his parents when he was young.
After graduating from the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts in 1998, like many young people, he submitted resumes for his work, but he hit a wall again and again.
After several twists and turns, he stepped into his long-awaited advertising industry and entered an advertising company in Nanjing.
The company he joined is very famous in the advertising industry in Nanjing, and it is already a great thing to be able to gain a foothold in such a company.
But Yang Yezhong is not satisfied with this, and he has a bigger goal in his heart: to dream of entering an internationally renowned 4A company. It's one of the most influential companies in the world.
"Enter the international 4A, do the most cattle creativity" has become yang Yezhao's enterprising force.
At that time, he had just joined the work, the salary was not much, and the computer of a few thousand dollars was a luxury for him. There is no money to buy a computer, so after others rest at noon and after work in the evening, no one uses the computer, he will stay and do the work he wants to do.
As a result, he was always the last to leave the company, and he worked until midnight.
However, no matter how good the body is, it can't bear to stay up late like this. He had never imagined that he would almost give his life to chase his dreams.
One day, he worked until late at night as usual, and when he was hungry, he ate a bowl of rice noodles across the bridge and hurried to sleep.
Soon, he was awakened by a stomachache. He thought he was in a hurry, didn't take it seriously, drank some hot water, and continued to sleep in pain.
However, in the middle of the night, he was awakened by abdominal pain, the pain made him unbearable, rolling straight on the bed, sweating, and finally dialed his parents' phone, he was sent to the hospital overnight when rescued, the result was a stomach perforation.
Yang Yeju later recalled: "My parents sent me to the hospital at that time, and immediately performed emergency surgery, from below the chest cavity to above the navel, all cut open, took the intestine out of the stomach and washed it and put it back, sewed it up." If it were a little later, this life might be gone. "
This kind of person who is willing to work hard and can bear hardships will pay all his energy to do anything.
As he himself said on Weibo: "As a person, you can not be successful, but you need to work hard; you can not be excellent, but you need self-discipline." The harder you work, the luckier you get, the more disciplined you are, the better you are. ”
Ten years after graduation, he successfully entered the international 4A company, and from 2009 to 2013, he won the Lion Award at the CANNES Cannes Creative Festival for five consecutive years, becoming the only creative person in China.
He has made a number of successful business cases, such as the 2013 advertisement for Nippon - "In the Name of Love, Refresh Life - Nippon Metro Graffiti Art Exhibition", gathering 32 artists from all over the world, creating 32 graffiti art works, which have appeared in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai subway stations for 3 months, which has aroused national attention and hot discussion, making Nippon the favorite brand in the hearts of consumers.
In addition, his creative epic advertisements "FIND ME" and "FIND MORE" cooperated by the famous Hollywood movie star Leonardo and OPPO Mobile Phone are the most famous, and this idea has become a classic of Chinese micro-films with a refreshing exploration style and suspense narrative.
In 2014, he left 4A and founded the company Sky & Sky, and in less than half a year, he obtained a capital increase of 8 million yuan from the listed company Blue Focus, and the company's valuation was tens of millions.
In fact, no one's success is an accident, all success is a medal forged with persistence, tenacity, hardship, forbearance, desperation, and courage.
Successful in his career and having experienced life and death, he regards everything very lightly, just like the name he gave his company "Sky and Sky".
He didn't just do things to make money, but also participated in more public welfare ideas.
The issue of food waste that we are concerned about this time is also of a public welfare nature. The cost of 230,000 yuan is out of his own pocket, and there is no commercial sponsorship.
Yang Yeju said that he was born in the countryside, and he knew from an early age that farmers had the hardships of growing grain, and before the relevant state departments issued an appeal, hoping that everyone would cherish grain, but many people were concerned by a gust of wind and forgot after a while.
Combined with his own experience, when he usually orders takeaway, if the rice delivered cannot be eaten, it will be dumped, which is a wasteful behavior, and such behavior makes him feel very entangled and painful.
He wanted to use such actions to warn himself and others.
He believed that grains of rice were worth more than gold.
Because from planting, germination, growth, to the farmer's harvest, and finally to the white rice on the table, the harvest of each grain of rice is not easy, so the grain of rice is gold.
Some people say, why not donate this money directly, isn't it more helpful?
He feels that donating this money to a non-profit organization affects a non-profit organization, but if you use it to make a social idea and turn it into an influential thing through performance art, then it may affect more people.
In his opinion, "money is more valuable to turn into works." ”
He said so and has always done so.
As early as 2008, the "New Citizen Plan" was launched to take the lead in applying installation art to public welfare activities, and this public welfare idea stemmed from Yang Yeqiu's early attention to the problem of migrant workers' children's difficulty in going to school, and he wanted to use creativity to amplify this problem, thus arousing more people's attention.
He pondered how many sleepless nights he finally had a good idea, but because there was no source of funds, the project could not be carried out. Watching such a good theme plan be shelved indefinitely.
At that time, his economic conditions were not good, but in order for the children of migrant workers to be concerned, he took out all his belongings out of his own pocket and completed this creative work.
His sincerity and goodwill were not betrayed, and as soon as the idea was released, it aroused widespread social concern, and Yang Yezhong won the first Lion Award at the International Festival of Creativity in Cannes, France.
In 2010, he launched the Yang Ai Art Project, which disseminates the concept of charity in the form of performance art, and its strong artistic impact and event influence make avant-garde art truly enter the public eye and become a new force to change society.
In December 2011, Yang Yezhong was selected by March Wind as one of the top ten news figures of the year who "moved 85 million".
With his talent, on September 1, 2013, Yang Yeqiu was selected as "Shanghai Top Ten Young High-end Creative Talents" by the Shanghai Youth League Municipal Committee and the Economic and Information Technology Commission.
If it is said that making a simple artistic idea is a very simple thing, it is difficult to persist in it for a long time. And he keeps doing it.
Since 2010, he has created a series of performance installations with the theme of autism, calling attention to the "children from the stars" Chinese autistic group.
On June 1, 2012, he released his performance art "Heart Lock" at the Shanghai World Expo, which triggered enthusiastic reports from 200 mainstream media such as the Chinese government network and the China Policy Network, making autistic families once again become a hot spot in society.
Also in that year, an autistic child named Li Meng in Shenzhen, because he was enrolled in Baocheng Primary School in Bao'an District, was jointly written by 19 parents, asking Li Meng (pseudonym), an autistic student studying at the school, to transfer to another school, and the principal Lin Xiyu was forced by the pressure of parents and class teachers to no longer accept the child.
This incident has aroused widespread concern from all walks of life about the education of special children.
Yang Yezhong also paid attention to the fact that he was invited by the Shanghai Special Education Guidance Center to create a work of art for the "International Day of Persons with Disabilities", and he took the inspiration of Li Meng's forced withdrawal from school to create a work called "19 Doors".
The 19 doors he collected from the people were installed side by side in the rectangular corridor to form a huge installation. Confronting the huge device is a child in a red scarf, who needs 19 keys to open the gate, only to find that everything is in vain.
In this way, we call on people to open the door of their hearts, care for the life of special children, warm the families of special children, and give the world a little more kindness and happiness.
Not only that, in 2014, he created and launched the "Don't Talk Today" campaign for the One Foundation, raising donations for children with autism with silence.
A total of more than 1.6 million Chinese joined the silent movement, including Jet Li, Li Bingbing and other stars received donations of 200 million. This activity has made more and more people pay attention to this special group.
In recent years, with the development of information technology, the online world is rich and colorful, but people in the Internet age often feel lonely and full of anxiety.
The network pulls the distance between people in the physical space, but opens up the psychological distance between each other. Human emotional needs never seem to change, but psychological loneliness is worse than ever. This is interpersonal autism in the online world.
Yang Yezhong also had this situation, at the end of 2017, his state was not very good, his heart was more depressed, and he wanted to make himself quiet, so he chose not to speak.
In 2018, Yang Yezhong initiated and implemented a year-long "Don't Speak Today" performance art.
He walks through every city in his job, choosing specific scenes of particular significance, bringing a "don't talk today" blue mask, a selfie stick, and leaving a selfie.
Yang Yezhong walked to more than a dozen cities in China, leaving nearly 10,000 photos, and he used this performance art to respond to interpersonal autism on the Internet.
Despite the fact that he cheated because he posted the photo to the circle of friends, he continued the performance art.
He didn't care about anyone's opinion, only his own motives and intentions, and he felt that even if he was not understood by people for the time being, some disputes and opinions could be faced calmly.
Because of this, when someone asks him why there are so many successful cases in business, what is the idea?
He replied, the idea is, I think, you can't think of it, you think of it, you don't dare to do it. I dare!
There is a saying that goes: "The moon in the sky is proud of the stars because of its independent character; the pine trees in the mountain streams stand tall because of their indomitable spirit; and the walkers on the road are at large because they have a free soul." ”
And Yang Yejue, because he loves performance art, chooses not to care. He insisted on doing what he loved. Regardless of return, regardless of pay.
In a person's life, everyone faces countless choices, and different choices determine different paths.
Faced with the choice, Yang Yezhong said:
"Don't choose to take the road that others have taken, don't choose to take the safest and smartest road, the good road is often not so rational and shrewd, it is not easy to walk at the beginning, insist on going, go out of a road, you become the leader." 」
Yang Yezhong successfully revealed a simple truth: insist on doing what you believe, do your best, and are not afraid of criticism, you can get the desired harvest.