august 25, 2020 - Galleria Continua

SUN YUAN & PENG YU 'IF I DIED' , at the St Regis Rome until August 31

Beijing based artists Sun Yuan & Peng Yu are two prominent figures in #contemporaryart that succeed in portraying paradoxical concepts through their art: dichotomies between reality and ideals, expectations and truths and freedom and constriction.

At The St Regis Rome they present If I Died, an exhibition of three installations. If I Died, 2013 is a fiberglass, silica gel and bird specimen sculpture that fills and enchants the space with its undulatingly strange composition. Teenager Teenager 2011 is a work originally made up of two parts of sculpture and performance, with the sculptures originally “viewing” the performance, seemingly connected but actually existing independently from each other. I Didn’t Notice What I’m Doing 2012 provokes questions about how we think and behave, as an investigation into the way subliminal structuring determines human behavior. The triceratops is seemingly similar to the modern rhinoceros but they have no evolutionary link between them, we ignore the lack of any scientific mutual relation relying on aesthetic similarities. The title of the work implies the common human habit of intuitively making connections with little to no scientific basis. These three installations enter into a dialogue with one another and their host space. Managing to distinctly present and manifest common shared aspects of the human condition, the viewer is invited to question their immediate context while entering the fantastical and at times unsettling world of Sun Yuan & Peng Yu.