Opening: Saturday 21 May 2011, Via del Castello 11, 6pm–12 midnight
Until 27 August 2011, Tuesday-Saturday, 2-7pm

If we win here we will win everywhere.
The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.
(Ernest Hemingway)

The work of Sun Yuan & Peng Yu is based on the incessant confirmation of paradox, on the perpetual search for the dualities between black and white, reality and falsehood, the manifest and the concealed. Their apparently provocative work is the demonstration of a continual analysis of life through experience in which the viewing public is often invited to participate, with the will to find the essence and substance hidden behind appearance.

The world is a fine place for you to fight for! - this is the title of the solo show by Sun Yuan & Peng Yu at the Galleria Continua in San Gimignano. It is a positive affirmation that encourages a uniting of forces in the struggle in favour of life (or you can read the work as a totally opposite declaration). The image associated with the title is that of three monkeys who have their hands respectively over their eyes, ears and mouth. The ancient meaning was “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”. But the picture taken by the artists today suggests something forced: the hands are those of Sun Yuan, which make it impossible for the monkeys to hear, speak and see. The monkeys are thus merely passive spectators, like children faced by the magic of a magician who takes delight in making objects appear and disappear, or like people disconcerted by a trick.

In the video part of this work, several people stand in a circle, and what is in the middle is always changing. Sometimes the scene/picture is an allegory with a taxodermist and his animals and sometimes it is a group of metal pieces of furniture. This furniture was in ten shipping crates at the transport company; the artists changed the final destination (they didn’t know what was inside before setting up the exhibition, but the contents look like contemporary art now).
What has really happened? Why are there packing cases of a wrong shipping in the show? Are they stolen cases? What do they contain? Where are the works? Where is the art in all this? Sun Yuan & Peng Yu question themselves and viewers about the perception of “reality” through deception. According to the artists, art is mere illusion too. Whether it has its own ethereal independence or has socio-political connotations, it is always forced. Nothing is real in this life, everything is theatre. Our actions are dictated by rules, we are like stuffed animals, actors, inert beings. Sun Yuan & Peng Yu reveal to us the secret of a great enactment, of a dangerous crime. They explain to us in detail the process of an action, obviously illegal, carried off without the slightest hitch, a demonstration of how the control, prohibitions, rules and power that control and manoeuvre our choices and ideologies are corruptible and therefore manoeuvrable.

In another work names It is not certain that your enemies will harm you, it is not certain that your friends will help you, the artists design a small device that can train the body and perserverance. They want it to be a piece of fitness gear that is seriously used and not treated as a joke, and believe it offers an unusual and new experience that can make the body healthy and stimulate intelligence as well.

 

世界是个好地方 值得你们去奋斗

开幕式: 2011年5月21日星期六， Via del Castello 11，下午6点到午夜12点
展览截止日期: 2011年8月27日，星期二到星期六，下午2点到7点

如果我们赢了这里我们将赢得一切。
世界是个好地方，值得为它奋斗。我非常讨厌离开它。
?(海明威)

孙原 & 彭禹的作品基于不断确认的悖论及在黑与白、现实和虚假、清晰和隐蔽之间双重性的长期探索。他们带有显然挑衅性的作品是对生命持续分析的论证，通过邀请观众的参与，其目的是要找到本质以及隐藏在表面下的物质。

“世界是个好地方值得你们去奋斗！”── 这是孙原 & 彭禹在常青画廊 / 圣吉米那诺个展的题目。这是一个积极的肯定，它鼓励在争斗中团结有利于生命的力量(或者把它当作反语)。和题目相联系的图像是三只分别被他们蒙住眼睛、耳朵和嘴的猴子。古代的意思是“非礼勿视，非礼勿听，非礼勿言”。但是图像是艺术家现在拍的，显得有些强制：手是孙原的手，使猴子无法听、说和看。那么猴子只是被动的观众，像孩子般面对乐于使物体出现消失的魔术师，或是人们对魔法把戏的困惑。

在这个作品的视频部分里，一群人围成一圈，被他们包围的物品不断变化：有时是一个标本制造者和他的动物们组成的寓言式的画面, 有时是一堆不明的金属物体，那是艺术家在运输作品时用十个自己作品的箱子从运输公司偷换来的十箱货物（此前他们并不知道箱子里是什么，但现在看起来更像一种当代艺术）。

真正发生了什么？为什么展览会有包装箱的错误运输？他们偷了箱子吗？里面有什么？作品在哪里？艺术在哪里？关于“现实”的认识，孙原 & 彭禹通过欺骗向自己和观众提问。对艺术家来说，艺术是纯粹的幻想。艺术总是被强制，要么它有自己的脱离现实的独立，要么有社会-政治的内涵。这辈子没有什么是真的，一切都如在影院。我们的行动是受规则支配，我们跟动物标本、演员、惰性众生一样。孙原 & 彭禹告诉我们一个伟大的关于制定危险的犯罪的秘密。他们向我们详细解释这个显然不合法的行为过程，一点都不顺利地进行着，展示如何控制、禁止规则和力量，它控制和操纵我们的选择和腐朽的意识形态，因此是可演习的。

在另一件作品陷害你的不一定是敌人，帮助你的不一定是朋友中，艺术家设计了一种可以训练肢体和毅力的小型器械，他们希望它是一个可以被人认真使用而不要当作玩笑的健身器，并认为这个新奇的体验既健身又益智。