Peili: Greater New York

Klein Sun Gallery is pleased to announce “Greater New York,” a solo show of multimedia works by Beijing-based artist Peili, on view from June 30 through August 19, 2016.

To Peili, it matters less who the artist is than who the viewer is. A previous work, “Artist Should be Beautiful,” regurgitates the iconic 1975 Marina Abramovic video piece “Art Must be Beautiful, Artist Must be Beautiful”. Here, Peili undergoes jaw reconstruction surgery to realize the oddly appealing ideals of artistic and aesthetic beauty mired in suffering and pain. Another performance piece, “Ms Lonely,” sees the artist poetically recreating Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “Irises” in arcs of graffiti across flat boards similar to theater backdrops. The performance is insular and isolated, visible only to those who care or dare to enter the four walls where Peili is painting. Those who are busy, or indifferently walking past, miss the performance altogether.

For her first solo show in the United States, Peili presents sound installations, video pieces and oil paintings on aluminum. Her sound installations, collectively titled “Long and Short Pavilion,” are muted works. Peili recorded acquaintances’ stories on tape, and then placed these recordings within vacuum metal balls filled with silky-black Chinese ink. When the tape plays, the muffled voices reverberate through the layers of metal and ink. Meanwhile, her paintings hint at the title of the show, which is taken from the mammoth MoMA PS1 series. Although Peili has expressly stated her dislike of that series, she admits that the title embodies her wider interest in free will. Thus, the paintings render portions of the city’s skylines and landmarks in simple, monochromatic strokes, imbued with Peili’s romanticized views of New York.