SUN YUAN & PENG YU

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Sun Yuan (born in 1972 in Beijing) and Peng Yu (born in 1974 in Heilongjiang)

Currently they both work and live in Beijing.

 

Both artists studied oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. After participating in pathbreaking exhibitions in China, they rose to prominence as independent artists in the late 1990s, and formed a collaborative partnership in 2000. Since then, they have incorporated unconventional, organic materials into their practice, which crosses mediums and challenges systems of political and social authority. Their large installations, which often incorporate technological components, comment critically on the modern understanding and exercise of political constructs like the nation-state, sovereign territory, freedom, and democracy.

 

They both are renown for working with extreme materials such as human fat tissue, live animals, and baby cadavers to deal with issues of perception, death, and the human condition. 

 

They won the 2001 Chinese Contemporary Art Awards (CCAA) and took part in the 51st Venice Biennial as representatives of China, and also participated in numerous group exhibitions including the Lyon Biennial, France (2000); Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2004); Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection, Kunstmuseum Bern (2005); Liverpool Biennial (2006); Breaking Forecast: 8 Key Figures of China’s New Generation Artists, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2009–10); Sydney Biennial (2010); 15 Years Chinese Contemporary Art Award, Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2014); Chinese Whispers: Recent Art from the Sigg and M+ Sigg Collections, Kunstmuseum Bern and Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern (2016); and Tales of Our Time, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2016–17). 

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