b. 1979, China
Lives and works in Beijing
Exhibition view,Asian Art Biennale, Taichung
Installation view, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
Curated by Lu Pingyuan
Inventing Ritual is a MadeIn Company production that questions the relationship between contemporary art and the notion of ritual through the presentation of the works of some twenty artists, including performances and videos, textes, peintures, sculptures et installations.
Major installations by Xu, He An, Zhang Hui and others, displayed symmetricallyon either side of a central space, formed a kind of stage on which the performance took place. A single projection screen hung from the ceiling at centre stage, flanked by two smaller monitors, with a circle of unlit candles placed on the ground.
A cast of performers interpreted works individually or in groups, synchronized with video or photographic pieces shown on the three screens. Notablevideos included Concentration Training Camp (2007–08) by Zhou Xiaohu, in which actors, filmed upside-down, go through the cult-like training tactics for Amway sales representatives, and Yang Zhenzhong’s classic I Will Die (2000–05), which documents people saying ‘I will die’ to the camera in their own language. The latter was shown with Xu’s Physique of Consciousness (2011/2015), a tai-chi-like physical exercise consisting of religious gestures from all over the world. The large central screen was sometimes flanked by a different video work on the monitors, which, in turn, were joined by one or two thematically relevant performances. At the end of each section of the performance, an actor would use Wang Sishun’s Truth (2015) – a gaslight that Wang aims to keep alight for the rest of his life – to light one of the unlit candles.
Smelted coins
13x16cm
From “Forty Years of Sculpture”, MOCAPE, Shenzhen, China, 2017
Cast resin
150x141x99cm
From “Contemporary Art From Hubei as a Sample”, Wanlin Art Museum, Wuhan, China, 2017
Bronze, James grieve apple tree
Installed at Cass Sculpture Foundation, West Sussex, England
Wang Sishun has planted a local fruit tree at Cass Sculpture Foundation, and will cast the fruits into bronze each subsequent year. There will be an annual harvest of the fruit, resulting in a bronze piece of work every year.It is important to Wang Sishun that the fruit tree is never the same annually, meaning that the bronze work will also never be the same, as the weather and temperature effects the size and the number of fruits.
444 x 44 cm
Drawn record of the trip, drawing on paper with marker recording the scenery viewed by the artist as he drives.
Gold, lacquer
4.786 x 2.958 x 1.828 cm
Shape, the length to width and width to height of the golden cube according to the gold ratio. Surface grilled with blue
paint.
Video
Edition 2/6
Duration : 1hour 46min 12sec
Throw a bottle cap arbitrarily on the floor, draw a circle with chalk outside the cap, then pick up the cap and throw again and again until the cap lands completely within the circle. Once the cap lands completely back within the circle, the work is finished.