First Spring, Chapter 2

中文

First Spring, Chapter 2 , SUN Xun
Solo Exhibition ShanghART Beijing, Beijing

Date: 04.23, 2021 - 05.21, 2021

Artists: SUN Xun 孙逊

Opening: 4pm, 23 April, 2021
Duration: 23 April - 21 May, 2021 (11 am-6 pm, Mon. Closed)
ShanghART Beijing | 261 Caochangdi, Airport Side Road, Chaoyang District

Opening on 23 April, ShanghART Gallery is delighted to present the second chapter of special project ‘First Spring’ during the Gallery Weekend Beijing 2021. The exhibition will feature Sun Xun's hand-drawn animation ‘Mythological Time’ and a set of relevant cell drawings.

‘Mythological Time’ was a commissioned work by the Guggenheim Museum in New York for the 2016 exhibition ‘Tales of Our Time’, and this will be its first showcase in China. Comprising a series of classical Chinese paintings on traditional bark paper, this animation explores Sun Xun’s hometown Fuxin, a city in northeastern China home to a famous coal mine. It narrates how the industrial city that used to be incomparably significant has now fallen into oblivion, while interweaving with legendary folks tales, alternative political beliefs and recurring historical evolutions. Throughout this journey we can capture a moment of history, which nevertheless is dark and heavy.

About the Artist

Sun Xun was born in 1980 in Fuxin in Liaoning Province, China. He graduated in 2005 from the Print-making Department of the China Academy of Art. In 2006 he established π Animation Studio. He currently lives and works in Beijing.

As a representative artist in the Chinese new media art, Sun Xun established π Animation Studio in 2006 after graduating from China Academy of Art, and soon received recognition from exhibitions and awards both domestic and abroad. His animation works have been nominated by both Berlin International Film Festival and Venice Film festival. Sun Xun’s personal visual language consist of metaphoric imagery, dark and intense hand drawing, and dreamy narrative. In recent years, Sun Xun uses New Media Art as a point of origin to explore more possibilities within the expansive realm of visual art: he explores narrative methods using diverse mediums such as newspaper, book, woodcut print, Chinese ink, pigment powder, probe into non-linear expressions of time and space, and inquire into both realistic and fantastical representations based on his own understanding of society and sociological theories.

Recent solo exhibitions include: Sun Xun: Mythological Time, Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada (2021); Sun Xun: Time Spy, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Florida, U.S.A (2019); Frontier, SUN Xun Solo Exhibition, Shanghai Museum of Glass (2018~2019); SUN XUN, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2018); Prediction Laboratory, Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2016) etc.

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Installation View