Solo Exhibition ShanghART Beijing, Beijing
Sun Xun: Magic Atlas
Duration: 2026/9/4 - 11/4
(Tue. - Sat. 11am - 6pm, Sun. and Mon. Closed)
Location: ShanghART Beijing
261 Caochangdi, Airport Side Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing
A decade in the making, Magic Atlas—the animated feature film by artist Sun Xun—celebrated its World Premiere in August 2026 at the 79th Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. This monumental work has subsequently been selected for the Feature Film Competition at the 50th Ottawa International Animation Festival and the Main Competition at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival.Over the course of these ten years, the production of the animated film and its related series of paintings have progressed in parallel. This exhibition will feature a series of woodcut works from Magic Atlas, presenting a visual system that encapsulates Sun Xun's most large-scale art project to date. Through a systematic review of his creative archives, the exhibition constructs a heterotopian landscape interwoven with metaphors, while simultaneously tracing inward to explore the creative trajectory and spiritual landscape the artist has been continuously expanding since 2002.
The narrative framework of Magic Atlas delineates a magical realm designated as Luocha: a reclusive coal empire devoid of historical consciousness and collective memory, wherein both aviation and cartography are strictly prohibited. The magician's airship descends upon Luocha, triggering widespread panic in a society already simmering beneath a fragile peace. After being arrested, he encounters an orphan named Xiao Zhi in prison. Amid the Mimeng Festival of collective amnesia, the Magician secretly passes Magic Atlas to Xiao Zhi before being burned at the stake. In the ensuing chaos, the child is cast into Prophecy Lake. This lake, a portal through time and space, unexpectedly transports Xiao Zhi to the sacred training ground of Jinta Ling. There, under his master's guidance, Xiao Zhi discovers he shares the same soul as the Magician and that they can reunite through the energy of fire, thus beginning a shared journey through higher-dimen-sional realms.
The artist employs a radical installation strategy, prompting fragments of the narrative scenes to transgress their linear temporal trajectory. Elements governed by heterogeneous logics diffuse throughout a specific spatio-temporal field: within the main exhibition hall, narrative vignettes from the animation are transmuted into woodcuts that completely envelop the spatial environment. Meanwhile, the secondary gallery presents large-scale stills and panoramic vistas; these function simultaneously as microcosmic footnotes to Magic Atlas and integrate with it to constitute a holistic artistic system.
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