Vancouver Art Gallery Hosts
Exclusive Media Preview For New Exhibitions:
Sun Xun: Mythological Time, Stories that animate us
and Pictures and Promises
February 16, 2021, Vancouver, BC – On February 17, the Vancouver Art Gallery opens its new exhibitions, Sun Xun: Mythological Time and Stories that animate us, two dynamic and compelling exhibitions that draw from a diverse range of oral histories, narratives, knowledge systems and cosmologies and Pictures and Promises, which features a broad selection of lens-based works by local and international artists.
In his first solo exhibition in Canada, Sun Xun employs printmaking and animation to produce ambitious works that contend with notions of time and history, fantasy and reality, and ideology and myth. In his highly imaginative video installation Mythological Time (2016), Sun takes viewers on a journey through his hometown of Fuxin in northern China, a coalmining centre facing the depletion of its economic lifeblood. Premiering at the Vancouver Art Gallery is Sun’s most recent work, Mythology or Rebellious Bone (2020), an epic 31-metre scroll comprised of Buddhist deities and fictional gods, and where humans disappear without a trace. References to Chinese legends intermix with the artist’s own imaginings to create lively narratives of a land after time.
Storytelling—its scope and ongoing significance—lies at the heart of Stories that animate us, a dynamic and compelling exhibition developed formally and thematically in conversation with Sun Xun’s Mythological Time (2021). Highlighting a rich selection of works on paper and animations, Stories that animate us draws from a diverse range of oral histories, narratives, knowledge systems and cosmologies. Whether evoking the spirit world, delving into the depths of their imagination or endeavouring to make sense of historical and current events, the featured artists reflect on such themes as culture, community, memory, morality and identity in order to speak to the past, present and future. Stories that animate us invites the public to reflect on the importance of storytelling in their lives while asking: What stories inspire you, what stories need to be told and which will you pass on?
Drawn from the Vancouver Art Gallery’s rich photographic holdings. Pictures and Promises, focuses on lens-based works that employ the structures, conventions and formal qualities used in commercial culture, mass media, fashion and advertising. The works then deploy these strategies to play on collective understandings of the world around us and to investigate the iconography of consumerism. Pictures and Promises is also the feature exhibition of the Capture Photography Festival.
WHO:
Diana Freundl, Interim Chief Curator/Associate Director, Vancouver Art Gallery
Zoë Chan, Assistant Curator, Vancouver Art Gallery
Grant Arnold, Audain Curator of British Columbia Art, Vancouver Art Gallery
Emmy Lee Wall, Executive Director, Capture Photography Festival
WHEN:
Wednesday, February 17, 2021, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
WHERE:
Vancouver Art Gallery ZOOM channel
To RSVP: CLICK HERE
All three exhibitions are on view from February 20, 2021 to August 22, 2021.
Sun Xun: Mythological Time is organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery and is an initiative of the Institute of Asian Art, curated by Diana Freundl, Interim Chief Curator/Associate Director.
Major Sponsor: Peter & Joanne Brown Foundation
Stories that animate us is organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery and curated by Zoë Chan, Assistant Curator and Diana Freundl, Interim Chief Curator/Associate Director.
Pictures and Promises is organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery in collaboration with Capture Photography Festival and Co-curated by Grant Arnold, Audain Curator of British Columbia Art, and Emmy Lee Wall, Executive Director, Capture Photography Festival.
Major Support from: The Audain Foundation
Community Partner: Capture Photography Festival
Image Credit: Sun Xun, Mythology or Rebellious Bone, 2020 (detail), ink, gold leaf, natural colour pigment on paper, Courtesy of the Artist and ShangART Gallery.
To book tickets: Visit vanartgallery.bc.ca
