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Far West Live

To mark Far West, Arnolfini Live has brought together artists who concoct and challenge East and West stereotypes to dig into the fissures between us.

Yuan Cai and JJ XI: Mad For Real

Sat 26 Jul 4.00pm – 4.30pm

Free

Yuan Cai and JJ Xi make strong use of irony in their performance and photographic work, infamously jumping on Tracey Emin’s Bed or pissing on Duchamp’s Urinal. Drawing on seemingly banal subject matter they make witty and absurd commentaries through ironic actions and posturing.

Visitors to Arnolfini and passers by will be greeted by the sight of the artists engaged in a soy sauce and ketchup fight in a glass cube on the quayside. Using strong physical and vocal gestures which evoke Tai Chi and Qi Gong, they create splurges of colour slowly obliterating the space around them and their own bodies. After a short time, the audience is literally blocked out through the covered walls. The work is about globalisation and marginalisation: although the popular products of global consumerism are instantly accessible and immediately recognisable, the gradual erosion of clarity through the process of splashing the coloured liquids causes chaos and confusion, and eventual obscurity.

Marcus Young: Pacific Avenue

Thu 7 – Sat 9 Aug

Contact Arnolfini box office for exact location and times.

Minneapolis-based conceptual artist Marcus Young offers a counterpoint to the object and commodity focus of the Far West exhibition with a work that takes place outside the traditional and institutional definitions of art. Following previous performances in cities across the world Hong Kong-born Young brings his project Pacific Avenue to the streets of Bristol. Young performs modest acts of extreme slowness to disrupt the usual urban city pace and the way people relate to one another causing reactions ranging from intrigue to bewilderment. The work is created primarily for an accidental audience: those who just happen upon the performance.