Art Journal #55: Sui Jianguo @ Today Art Museum BJ

Wanted to miss this show, since there's "only 1 thing in it", and was of course in BJ only for so very very briefly, and had to rush to my next work appointment. But decided to braved the BJ traffic in the end. Was not disappointed when I saw Sui Jianguo's monumental installation, though I did have to rushed out in 5mins.

The work is made up of two metal balls, one static, one moving, both giantic, must be 2-3metres in diameter. Its not an attractive work at all, but the lack of beauty force you to focus on the issue it's examining. Which is the relationship of sculpture, space and movement (or lackof). Sculptures are traditional static. People move around to see it. But this work flipped that over - the metal ball move around, loudly and "aggressively", and force the viewer to engage.

Am becoming more of a fan of Sui. I liked what I saw at Today Art last time from him as well, on the "passage of time" (the growing blue ball with thickening layer of paint, with discplined recording of the whole transformation, hence showing the passage of time). Very interesting and intellectual take on sculptures that you rarely see from Chinese sculptors today!