Sui Jianguo (), professor and ex-chairman of the Department of Sculpture in Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, is a contemporary Chinese artist.
Biography Sui was born in Qingdao, China in 1956.Link text, additional text. Both of his parents were factory workers and were largely absent during his early childhood due to the workload imposed on them by the Mao government.Link text , additional text. Growing up, Sui witnessed the harsh realities of the Mao years. During this time, Maoist socialist realism became the approved art style. This style generally portrayed Maoist ideals in a romantic positive light. These images were used to create a cult of personality for Mao. At the age of ten, schools were closed as part of the Cultural Revolution, and Sui began to work in the factories with his parents. In an interview he stated that he was "transfixed in the age of Mao worship, when Mao was virtually a God at home". Painting was not a career option for Sui until the age of eighteen when he broke his arm, which took him away from factory work. According to Sui, during this period he contemplated his "spiritual" life and what he wanted to do with his future. Soon after, and with the permission and guidance of his father, he began studying painting at night under the cover of darkness.
Upon his return to the factory Sui painted propaganda posters of Mao in the socialist realist fashion. His studies and practice gave fruit to his first true work: a traditional Chinese landscape painting, which he completed in 1976 after the death of Mao. After his death, the Chinese government loosened its grip on the population, and educational reforms were quick to follow. Sui took advantage of the new freedoms, and moved to Jinan and then Shandong, where he received his major in sculpture. A few years later he earned his master's degree in Arts at the central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. According to Sui, by the time he had enrolled in college, he had decided he wanted to do sculpture, inspired by his years in the factories, where people would tell him he had "skill in using his hands". After gaining his master's degree, Sui travelled to the Netherlands, Australia, Japan, and other places to display his art. He also worked as a guest professor or speaker at several universities outside of China. Finally, Sui returned to become chairman of the department of sculpture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
Sui became internationally prominent through the use of “naturalistic sculptures” that made use of rocks, boulders, and steel. These early sculptures brought him into the international scene. His true acclaim came in 1997 when he crafted his first Mao suit, a sculpture that imitated Chairman Mao's communist jacket. His jackets interested famous collectors such as Uli Sigg, and helped him gain international recognition.
Art Sui has been an active artist on the stage of modern and contemporary art in China. He has had numerous solo and joint exhibitions in Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, India, Taiwan, and most recently in the United States, in addition to his active schedules in China, and several high-profile exhibitions worldwide. He likes to work with hard and heavy materials such as granite and metals. His techniques of sealing, binding, tying and hammering created a relationship of association and confrontation between his materials, which resonate with his perception of life and his internal conflicts. Among his known works in the early 1990s are Land Depression, in which he entwines huge boulders in nets made from steel ropes, and Sealed Memory, a closely welded cabinet of thick steel sheets, which gives an oppressive sense of weight and blockage. Memory is a wall made out of old railroad ties. The ties have been ground down just as humans are ground down by life, and they become part of a dividing wall, a boundary.
Many of Sui's early works reflect his personal experiences and explore, to a lesser or greater extent, and his anxieties and feelings of imprisonment. He began his Mao Suit series in 1997. This series can be regarded as the conclusion of an important stage in his self-exploration. He draws on the powerful image of the Mao suit, not as an element of revolutionary attire but as a symbol of restriction and limitation. Sui suggests that none of the Chinese have truly taken off their Mao suits even though the revolutionary era is over. Sometimes Sui makes the Mao suits resemble Buddhas and at other times he turns them into hard shells. Recently, Sui has made fairly humorous, soft and almost transparent Mao suits. The Mao suit is perhaps coming to represent to the artist an object of fun.
In a more recent work, the red dinosaur, a symbol of imperialist China, like communist China, with the engraved door on the chest mentions "Made in China". This is a glance toward plastic toys from the start of the Chinese economic flight, and a symbol of an antiquated China moving toward being contemporary. Throughout the 1960s, it seemed that everything was "made in Japan", in the 1970s "made in Taiwan", and in the 1980s "made in China". The fabrication of finished products based on models and imported raw materials has become the economic norm of emerging countries.
Sui's work explores Mao's Cultural Revolution. Through his work and educational efforts, abstract and conceptual sculpture have been well accepted by the ordinary Chinese people and by the authorities. His works have been recognized by the Western art world.
Selected works Earth Force
Earth Force was one of Sui's earlier works and came to his mind in 1987. The inspiration came when he was experimenting with conceptual and symbolic aspects of materials and mediums. His need to experiment with rocks came after Tiananmen Square; it was during this stage that Sui began working with more quiet materials. Earth Force consists of twenty 100 kg boulders. Each boulder is entangled in a web of ribbed steel. The final work was presented in Beijing in 1992.
Mao Jackets
Sui Jianguo's Mao Jackets are perhaps his most iconic work. Sui began thinking of the Mao Suit or Sun Yat Sen suit when he visited the birthplace of Sun Yat Sen in August 1996. A finished product finally emerged a year later when Sui was in Australia for a fellowship. A "scholarly discussion" is credited with yielding the first outlines or frame of the suit.
While there are several representations of these jackets, most of them are a hollow sculpture of a Mao suit. Sue Wang states that "utilizing various forms and sizes to simultaneously release the excitement and inhibition associated with this object, the artist used a satirical approach to express the conflict between escape and repression".
The Mao suit itself is representative of Sui's strong ties with China's Maoist past. During the Cultural Revolution Sui and many other Chinese were influenced by Mao's cult of personality. Sui goes into further detail, stating "Mao was virtually a God at home". The empty, hollow suits are seen by some as symbols of Mao's empty promises. Sui stresses that the suits are not much as a criticism but more of a medium to convey his ideas and emotions about his Maoist past. Upon completion of this project Sui felt like he had reached a certain type of resolution. Sui claimed, "I'm putting him to rest. This way I can grow up".
Red Dinosaurs
Sui's Red Dinosaurs or Jurassic Age series have also become a trademark of his work. These dinosaurs focus more on China's recent exporting nature, allowing Sui to evaluate the contemporary Chinese export culture. According to 798 ART district, the "Made in China" stamped on several of the dinosaurs' midsection "relates directly to some topics on economical relations". Sui intends to cause the audience to consider who is making a product, where it is going, and why. Sui sometimes cages the dinosaurs. When asked about this, Sui stated that he was suggesting that China's economic expanse "in some ways is not good for China, for the environment and human life... I don't want him to continue getting bigger".
The dinosaurs are usually made out of fiberglass and can stand up to 310 cm tall.
Made in China
Sui's Made in China series revolves around China's new identity as a world producing power. The works are usually banners stating "Made in China".
Limited Motion
Some of Sui's most recent work has been on the Limited Motion series. Limited Motion was created in order to express the feelings of "imprisonment" felt by Sui Jianguo. The series of works made its debut in 2011 and was shown in the Museum Beelden aan Zee in The Hague.
For this series Sui creates steel structures that house steel spheres. These spheres are able to move due to an internal motor. As seen with previous works, the works in this series vary in size as well as shape. For example, one of the Limited Motions is housed in a cage, and another is housed in a box. In the grander scope of the work, however, certain crucial details manifest themselves in the project that allow the artist to fully share his feelings and intentions via the artwork. The first of these details is the solid unrelenting structures themselves. Their harsh exterior perhaps refers to the oppressive stance the Chinese government has on censorship. The exterior shells are weathered, perhaps indicating the attempts made upon the structure to weaken it or tear it down, yet we still see it standing in place.
Solo exhibitions
2012 "Sui Jianguo's Discus Thrower" The British Museum, London, UK
2012 "Sui Jianguo" Pace Beijing, 798, Beijing, China
2012 "Restrained Power: Sui Jianguo's Work", MOCA, Singapore
2011 “the Hague Under Heaven---Suijianguo Sculpture” Museum Beelden aan Zee, Hague, Holland
2010 “Made in China by Sui Jianguo” Art Issue Projects, Beigao District, Beijing, China
2009 “Motion/Tension : New Work by SuiJianguo", Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
2008 “Art Time Square-Exhibition of works by Sui Jianguo”, Hong Kong, China
2008 “Revealing Traces”, Joyart, Beijing, China
2007 “Dian Xue - Sui Jianguo Art Works”, OCAT, Shanghai, China
2007 “Speeding up – Sui Jianguo Space Video”, Arario, Beijing, China
2005 “Sui Jianguo: The Sleep of Reason”, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, US
1999 “Clothes Veins Study”, Passage Gallery, Beijing, China
1997 “You Meet the Shadow of Hundred Years”, Victoria College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia
1996 “Exhibition of Works by Sui Jianguo”, Hanart Gallery, Hong Kong
1995 “Deposit and Fault”, New Delhi Culture Center, India
1994 “Exhibition of Works by Sui Jianguo”, Hanart Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
1994 “Remembrance of Space”, CAFA Gallery, Beijing, China
2013 "Space Drawings" "FITUNFIT", Museum KAdE, Amersfoort, Holland
2011 “Leaving Realism Behind”, Pace Beijing, Beijing, China
2011 “Start from the Horizon-Chinese Contemporary Sculpture Since 1978”, Sishang Art Museum, Beijing, China
2011 “Ideology and Manifestation”, Wenxuan Art Museum, Chengdu, China
2011 “the 4th Guangdong Triennial”, GMOA, China
2011 “Super-Organism-CAFAM Biennale", Beijing, China
2011 “Collection History-China New Art”, MOCA, Chengdu, China
2011 “Martell Artists of the Year” Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou
2010 “Made in Pop Land”, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea
2010 “The city of forking paths” The sculpture project of the expo boulevard, World Expo Shanghai 2010, Shanghai
2010 “The constructed dimension - 2010 Chinese contemporary art invitational exhibition” National Art Museum of China
2010 “Sculpture - Sui Jianguo and his students”, A4 gallery, Chengdu, China
2009 “The home court” White Box Museum of Art, 798, Beijing, China
2009 “Beijing—Havana The Revolution of Art”, The National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba
2009 “I Can Believe Chinese Contemporary Artist’s" (Invitation) Exhibition & Star Art Museum Opening Exhibition
2009 “Embrace Suzhou - Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Art”, Suzhou Art Museum, China