Sun Yuan and Peng Yu 

The artist couple Sun Yuan and Peng Yu started their collaboration in 2000. In 2009, they created the installation Sun Yuan Peng Yu, a self-portrait describing the relationship and dynamic of their artistic alliance. A recurring smoke circle was persistently dispersed by a broom powered by a mechanical arm that kept on sweeping in the air; the smoke would persistently reappear, only to be dissolved when the broom hit again. For Sun and Peng, the moment of encounter between the two components – and the dissolving of one by the other – symbolised a moment of joint artistic creation in their way of working. Nearly all of Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s installations are bent on soliciting wonders and tension from spectators. The act of looking, sometimes peeking, on the part of audience members is a constitutive element of their recent works, which often involve the staging of intimidating spectacles.