![dear sun yuan dear sun yuan](https://www.galleriacontinua.com/assets/artists_images/2013-01b-Sun-Yuan-Peng-Yu-sofa-Continua.jpg)
![dear sun yuan dear sun yuan](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d6/f3/3d/d6f33d938fb66e1c78b70056d45b0f85.jpg)
In addition to setting uncomfortably high camera angles-resembling the perspective of surveillance videos-the artist also took close-range pictures, sometimes while being performed upon by the couple. From toe-sucking to being aggressively hosed down by the artist, the masked strangers perform numerous festishistic tasks over the course of two days. Six small screens on the exhibition wall expose the undressed, shackled man and woman in various submissive positions, waiting obediently for the artist’s commands. Shot in late August 2014, it portrays a couple invited by Jin to partake in a sadomasochistic project over several days in the artist’s studio.
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Yet Why Freedom fails to provide relief with its disturbing filmic approach towards notions of intimacy and psychological control.
DEAR SUN YUAN SERIES
In an attempt to escape the tense environment induced by Dear, one turns toward the series of videos presented by Jin Shan. In simulating a confined but kinetic and willful form that undergoes schizophrenic agitation, the installation alters the perception of “free” space and, in turn, limits the visitor’s physcial and emotional experience around the objects. Stemming from this, Dear articulates the notion of space and, at the same time, tests the limitations of freedom-a concept that ultimately has its own limitations. In recent performance installations, Sun and Peng have substituted their organic mediums with synthetic materials to further their investigations of spatial transformation.
DEAR SUN YUAN FULL
Body Link (2000), for example, is of comprised a staged blood transfusion using the dead fetus of conjoined twins, while Safe Island (2003) features a cage full of spectators circled by a real-life tiger, which creates an inverse experience of visiting a zoo. The Beijing-based Sun and Peng are particularly well-known for their extreme use of (live) materials. In combination with Jin Shan’s seven-channel video, Why Freedom (2014), the show brings together two different ways of engaging with notions of freedom and control. The installation, entitled Dear (2013), by artist-duo Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, is one of only two artworks presented in the exhibition. Between intervals of the hose’s flailing struggle against its restraints, the isolated chair appears to offer a place of rest-even or a moment-until it is consumed again by the abrupt, violent spasms of the hose. A thin, black rubber hose releasing spurts of pressurized air performs a disturbing dance around an old leather armchair, inadvertently-or deliberately-tearing off the armrest’s fabric while demolishing parts of the cement floor and nearby wall. Immediately upon entering the space, an onslaught of wild, hectic movements puts one on edge. A disconcerting hissing noise echoes off the walls in Platform China’s current exhibition “Dear, Why Freedom,” producing an unsettling, almost adversarial atmosphere in the remote Chai Wan gallery.