Sun Yuan & Peng Yu
Sun Yuan (born 1972) and Peng Yu (born 1974) are artists living and working collaboratively in Beijing since the late 1990s.[1]
Sun was born in Beijing and Peng in Heilongjiang. Sun and Peng are contemporary conceptual artists[2] whose work has reputation for being confrontational and provocative.[3] In 2001, they won the Contemporary Chinese Art Award.[4]
Life and works
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu are famous for working with unconventional media such as taxidermy, human fat, and machinery. In the controversial[5] "Dogs Which Cannot Touch Each Other," four dogs (two pairs facing one another) were strapped onto treadmills in a public installation.[6]
For the 2005 Venice Biennale, the duo invited Chinese farmer Du Wenda to present his home-made UFO at the Chinese Pavilion.[2]
The installation "Old People's Home," (2008) comprised 13 hyperrealist sculptures of elderly world leaders, including Yasser Arafat and Leonid Brezhnev, in electric wheelchairs set to automatically wander through the room and bump into one another.[7][8]
"Angel" (2008) is a fiberglass angel sculpture complete with flesh-covered wings, white hair, and frighteningly realistic skin that features details like wrinkles, sunspots, and peach fuzz.[9]
Their 2009 solo exhibition, "Freedom", at Tang Contemporary in Beijing, featured a large fire-hose hooked to a chain that erupted water spray at a distance of 120 meters and thrashed throughout an enormous metal cage.[10] Some interpreted this as a memorial to the Tiananmen Square incident on its twentieth anniversary.
Selected exhibitions
2016
Tales of Our Time, Guggenheim Museum, NY[11]
2009
Unveiled: New Art From The Middle East, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
2006
Liverpool Biennial, Tang Contemporary Art, Liverpool, UK
2005
Higher, F2 Gallery, Beijing, China (solo)
Venice Biennale
Mahjong: Chinese Contemporary Art from Uli Sigg Collection, Art Museum Bern, Switzerland
The 51st Venice Biennale (China Pavilion), Venice
To Each His Own, Zero Art Space, Beijing
Ten Thousand Years Post-Contemporary City, Beijing
2004
Ghent Spring, Contemporary Art Financial Award, Ghent, Belgium (solo)
Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video From China, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, USA
Australia: Asia Traffic, Asia-Australia Arts Centre
The Virtue and the Vice: le Moine et le Demon, Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon, France
All Under Heaven: Ancient and Contemporary Chinese Art, The Collection of the Guy and Myriam Ullens Foundation, MuHKA Museum of
Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium
Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium
What is Art?, Shanxi Art Museum, Xi’an, China
Australia - Asia Traffic, Asia-Australia Arts Centre, Australia
Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, Korea
2003
Second Hand Reality: Post Reality, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
Left Wing, Beijing
Return to Nature, Shenghua Arts Centre, Nanjing, China
2002
The First Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou Art Museum, Guangzhou, China
2001
Get Out of Control, Berlin, Germany
Yokohama 2001 International Triennial of Contemporary Art, Yokohama, Japan
Winner: The Contemporary Chinese Art Award of CCAA, Beijing
2000
Indulge in Hurt, Sculpture Research Fellow of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing
5th Biennale of Lyon, Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon, France
Fuck Off!, Donglang Gallery, Shanghai
1999
Post-Sense Sensibility Alien Bodies & Delusion (Basement), Beijing
1997
Counter-Perspectives: The Environment & Us, Beijing
Inside, Tongdao Gallery Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing [12]
References
- Yuan, Yu, Sun, Peng. "Sun Yuan / Peng Yu - The World Belongs to You - Palazzo Grassi Venice". Archived from the original on 6 September 2012. Retrieved 24 April 2012.
- Orbit.zkm.de
- Marlow, Tim, The Independent, Visual Art: East meets West in new cultural revolution from FindArticles.com
- ArtNet.com
- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/arts/design/dogs-fighting-guggenheim.html
- "Or Else It's Not Utopian". SREEN | 介面. Retrieved 2016-03-05.
- Dorment, Richard. "Review: The Revolution Continues: New Art From China at the Saatchi Gallery". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-03-05.
- Yuan, Yu, Sun, Peng. "Sun Yuan and Peng yu". Retrieved 23 April 2012.
- "Sun Yuan and Peng Yu's Fallen Angel". artnet News. Retrieved 2016-03-05.
- Duff, Stacey, Time Out Beijing,"Of Corpse We Can" Archived 2009-07-11 at the Wayback Machine
- "Tales of Our Time". Guggenheim. 2016-04-04. Retrieved 2016-12-03.
- Yuan, Yu, Sun, Peng. "Sun Yuan and Peng Yu". Retrieved 24 April 2012.
External links
- The artists’ official site
- Sun Yuan and Peng Yu on ArtNet.com
- Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s contribution to the 2001 Yokohama Triennale
- Further information from the Saatchi Gallery