Tong Kunniao
Tong Kunniao, Chinese, b.1990, Changsha, Hunan Province, received his BFA from No.3 Studio, Department of Sculpture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2015. In 2016, he went to graduate school and dropped out in the same year. He currently lives and works in Beijing.
Tong Kunniao’s works across installation, performance, video, sculpture, and painting. He is adept at using “excess products” generated by the modern world—a perpetual waste-making factory, and “leftovers” that have been found in resale shops, the flea markets or on the streets. He concerns about how the complex social structure has determined our social status and eaten up our individual identities. By decomposing ready-made objects and reassembling them in tandem or keeping them perfectly in balance, Tong aims to demonstrate the individual consciousness (the free spirit) behind the objects as well as the multiplicity and fragility of the system. In an era when commodity fetishism and symbol consumption are prevalent, and information is overloaded, Tong’s work extends beyond formal boundaries of reconstruction and presents it in a quirky and seemly absurd manner.
2024（revision）
Variable Size (around 1000X150X300cm)
Mixed Media
This chaotic and integrated installation is intended to suggest that our society is like an arena where there are multi-element contending for attention and competition for basic survival rights. Many elements in the work are discarded consumables that I have taken in cities and villages. These consumables are abandoned in our progressive life and barbaric society. I imagine that their mixture and existence will shape another world which has tremendous energy. When we are close to the vision of tomorrow, when the world is completely managed by machines, we can hardly imagine that human beings will become the biggest consumables.in the information overload, ruins are created to counteract ruins - or more precisely the action of “teetering”, a term that refers to an constant hope for equilibrium in hopelessness. Teetering on the edge of destruction, these works structure a call and response, around the notions of Dasein [existence] and Geworfenheit [thrownness]. A concept introduced by Martin Heidegger who in his despair saw us all in a state of “thrownness” into the arbitrary and erratic aspects of our existence.
Era of Encore
Curator: Bao Dong
Times Art Museum, Beijing
June 8 - September 1, 2024
