Since 1991, Wu Shanzhuan and Inga Svala Thorsdottir have been collaborating on the production of keenly witty, deeply humanist works, ranging from installations and sculptures to photographs and works on paper, through which they examine, question, and, ultimately, expand the value of art and the meaning of its making. Both Wu and Thorsdottir had been building vibrant careers individually before they began to work together. Merging their language-based, historically informed practices, they have created works foregrounding the link between art and consumption and the long tradition of artists transforming everyday objects into works of art.

Inga Svala Thórsdóttir was born in Iceland in 1966. She graduated from the Painting Department of the Icelandic School of Arts and Crafts in 1991, and from the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg in 1995. She founded Thor’s Daughter’s Pulverization Service in 1993, and BORG in 1999.

Wu Shanzhuan was born in China in 1960 and graduated from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in 1986. He graduated from the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg in 1995. He founded Red Humour in 1985, and Red Humour International in 1990.

“Think about the rights of things”, the artists insist. “Being a thing is not a question of identity. It’s an attitude of mind – something which becomes clearer when you look around you. There you see a cosmopolitan group of things which has more in common with each other than you probably thought. Being a thing among all things, where you become an extra, there you find the right of things. With the extra position, the right(s) of things appears.”

About the exhibition

Dates: 2017.5.27 – 8.13

Venue: Long March Space, Beijing

Courteys of the artists and Long March Space.