Duration: January 18 – March 6
Venue: ShanghART Beijing, No.261 Caochangdi Opening hours: 11am – 6pm (closed on Mondays)
Sun Xun’s latest work “Beyond-ism” (2010) included animation video, ink drawings, and all hand-drawn renderings. Meanwhile, the animation also will be shown at the 40th International Film Festival Rotterdam (The Netherlands, 26 Jan – 6 Feb, 2011) and the 33rd Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival (France, 4-12 Feb, 2011).
“Beyond-ism” was inspired by the artist in residence project in Yokohama, and the work consists of three parts. The first part, which consists of 10 huge ink drawings and frames of animation video, was realized in Yokohama. The second part, the drawings for the animation, was completed in Beijing, and the work was firstly exhibited at Aichi Triennale 2010 in Japan. The third part, hand-drawn renderings and video, was exhibited at Rockbund Museum in Shanghai. The whole process is combined with a sitespecific drawing.
There is an old Chinese legend that says the Emperor Qin Shi Huang (258 BC – 210 BC, he was the first emperor of a unified China – Qin Dynasty) sent Xu Fu (served as a court sorcerer in Qin Dynasty) and 3,000 boys and girls on a boat towards Fairyland Penglai in the east in order to find the elixir of life. It is said that these people may have arrived in Japan in the end… In ancient China, people then had one understanding of the world. It says the world is a big mountain, which is carried on the back of a big tortoise whose name is “Bi Xi”, the eldest of the Dragon’s 9 sons, who is very good in carrying heavy weights whilst standing over four big elephants… This is the way the world has been structured.
Sun Xun’s works are predominantly monochromatic, highly detailed hand-drawn animation films. His works investigate the construction and narration of history. Like most of Sun Xun’s recent animations, “Beyond-ism” also features a key protagonist; a magician dressed in a black suit and a high top hat. As the only legitimate liar, he coined the most beautiful myth in the world, which is a misty mirage, but turns the whole world upside down. Everything is a romantic wasteland, and in these ruins will there be some long-awaited glory? Or should we divulge these lies or glories by turning themselves upside down?
Will the original appearance be restored if the so-called “-ism” is pulled away? Without “-ism”, what will life be like?
A Pile of Passion--Shanghart group show
ShanghART Gallery, Bldg. 16, 50 Moganshan road, Shanghai Feb. 17th-Mar. 20th, 2011, 10am-6pm daily
Participating artists include, MadeIn Company, Shi Yong, Xiang Liqing, Yang Zhenzhong, Shi Qing, Zhang Ding, Zhang Qing, etc, who will warm this cold beginning of Chinese New Year.
This gathering is composed of real and fictional, calm and animated, complex and subtle forms, all related by a feeling of passion, presenting a view on artists’working process, a fragment of their creations. This art invitation is embodied into a poem on happiness and illusion, a colorful game on pressure liberation, a proletarian plant and bird installation, a traveler from cyber ruins, a naked bullfighter, even a fatal virus, all these thoughts spread out from the artists’ mind passing through their studios to arrive the show. Let’s forget for a moment Jean-Paul Sartre statement “Man is a useless passion”, we are still a pile, filled with passion to be exteriorized.
“Curated By Rong Rong” Qiu & Ren Hang: Inner Ear
Artist: Qiu & Ren Hang
Date: January 15 – March 9, 2011
Venue: UCCA White Cube & Black Box
In the latest addition to the “Curated By…” series, UCCA welcomes the cutting edge of Chinese photography into its exhibition space. Guest curator Rong Rong – celebrated photographer and co-founder of Three Shadows Photography Art Center –introduces raw and adventurous work from Qiu and Ren Hang, two rising young stars in the field of Chinese photography. Setting up a fascinating dialogue of opposition, Rong Rong leads us into a landscape that transcends the inner worlds and external environments of these artists, he reveals a boundless visual terrain of discrete moments captured in black and white and color.