Past Solo Exhibition
Sun Xun: Republic of Jing Bang 鲸邦实习共和国: Citizens Wanted! 15.05.2014 — 18.05.2014
Information
Event has ended
15 May - 18 May 2014
Art Basel Hong Kong
About The Exhibition
Make the land of your dreams come true, and be one of the only 100 citizens of Sun Xun’s new country launch, “Jing Bang: A Country Based on Whale” at Art Basel Hong Kong, Encounters booth 1E3. Curated by Yuko Hasegawa, Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.
The worldwide registration of new citizens and visa application are now open. Immigration officers from STPI will be there to process new enlistments at this checkpoint. Get a glimpse of this “Divine Country Jing Bang” when visiting the booth.
Successful citizenship applicants (at a cost of USD 10,000) shall be rewarded with a hand printed and bound book of “Jing Bang”, a passport, identification card, national flag and animation in DVD and digital betacam. Visas (at USD 25) are available for short-term visit. All visa and citizenship packs are produced by Sun Xun in collaboration with STPI. Do not miss this chance to be part of a new frontier as “Jing Bang’s” existence is time based and lasts as long as a whale emerging for air.
Sun Xun’s new project signifies a new trajectory for STPI, pushing not only the limits of collaboration with artists but taking its partnerships with Platform STPI Projects and ShanghArt to new levels with this performative installation, challenging public engagement with contemporary art.
About the artist
Sun Xun
Residency in 2012
Sun Xun (b. 1980, Fuxin, China; based in Beijing, China) is best known for his labour-intensive stop-motion films that critically address themes of truth, culture, history and politics. He also considers how they are portrayed differently across official narratives and personal recollections. Meticulously created from woodblock prints and drawings in ink, oil and charcoal, his work layers both realistic and fantastical images to tell stories that resist straightforward readings.
At the dawn of new economic reforms in 1980s China, Sun’s hometown of Fuxin, a remote agricultural province, remained largely unchanged following the rise and fall of its coal industry. It stood in stark contrast to the bigger cities undergoing rapid transformation. When Sun moved to metropolitan Hangzhou for his studies, the sense of disorientation he felt deepened his awareness of this disparity. These experiences would form the foundations of the multilayered worlds in his work. In Mythological Time (2016), Sun’s animation unfolds as a journey through the dystopian portrayal of a coal mining town. Projected onto full-height murals that depict human figures and mythical creatures from the film, the work thrusts visitors into an immersive viewing experience that collapses their sense of time and perspective.
Sun obtained his BFA in Printmaking from the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou in 2005. His work is found in major collections including Brooklyn Museum, New York; Vancouver Art Gallery; TANK Shanghai; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; Arario Museum, Seoul; Singapore Art Museum; M+, Hong Kong; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Birmingham Museum of Art; Asia Society, New York; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo; and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.