Presented in collaboration with the Kramlich Collection
Marc Johnson’s 2014 film, YúYú, begins with panoramic images of the iconic landscape of China’s Wulong County, a UNESCO Heritage Site, which sets the ambiance for what is to come. Its main protagonist is the Chinese beekeeper, Shé Zuŏ Bīn, performing a rite of spring to recover the environmental balance of the Yangtze Valley. Standing on a rock over the course of two hours, Shé Zuŏ Bīn enters a trance with nature by summoning millions of bees from forty hives to cover his body, which is temporarily transformed into a living sculpture. Johnson (b. 1986, Vitry-sur-Seine, France; lives and works in Paris) is a French-Beninese artist, architect and film director who creates projects that collapse time and space by tapping into the spiritual power of ancient knowledge and the communicative capacities of current media technologies.
This exhibition will be on view April 14-June 30, 2017.
Featured Program
Marc Johnson & Aebhric Coleman in Conversation
Sunday, May 7, 2–3:30 PM
Artist Marc Johnson and Aebhric Coleman, Director of the Kramlich Collection, discuss the making of YúYú, collaborating with Chinese beekeepers, bees from an anthropological perspective and the film’s aesthetic influences, in relationship to social change and new theories on nature and culture. Introduced by guest curator Betti-Sue Hertz.
