The Exhibition

For his solo exhibition Super China!, Thai artist Navin Rawanchaikul transforms UCCA’s Nave into a playful zone where visitors become active participants in the dynamic story of contemporary Chinese art.

"With Super China!, UCCA initiates a new series of exhibitions with some of the major contemporary creators from Asia. We are glad to share Navin's especially created pieces and his exuberant perspective on China with our audience," says Jérôme Sans, UCCA Director.

Bringing together new and recent sculptures, installation, paintings and works on paper, the show's centerpiece is SUPER CHINA!* (2009), an interactive board game where visitors can choose from a number of roles and win in the high-stakes field of contemporary art. Medals and trophies will be awarded to the winners at the end of the show. The game is complimented by SUPER CHINA! (2009), a large-scale painting that humorously portrays the icons and superstars of Chinese art in a sprawling scene painted in the style of a Bollywood movie poster.

A colorful cast of characters and fiction stories await visitors to SUPER CHINA!; each plays a role in the fantastical stories that surround Navin's multi-disciplinary art practice, told in the artist's comic books, which can be found in UCCA's Super Ganbei's Le Bar.

Taximan (2008) is a one-meter high extraterrestrial superhero from Taxi planet who traveled to earth.

Curatorman and Old Navin (2002), portrays the artist as an old man, his career faded, arguing with a cynical curator who is promoting art's total commercialization and "Biennial Franchising."

Fly with Me to Another World (To be Continued), 2008 takes as its point of departure the story of Thai artist Inson Wongsam, who drove a Lambretta scooter from Thailand to Europe during the early 1960s, using his woodcut prints to barter for lodging. His trip became legendary among the Thai art community and served as the inspiration for Navin's multi-part work, initiated in 1999.

"The universe that Navin has constructed, though fanciful at first glace, is one we all share," remarks UCCA Curator David Spalding. "In fact, it is this possibility of sharing and collaborating—of engaging with and listening to one another, of looking and laughing at ourselves—that underscores all of the works in the exhibition."

* Every weekend from April 18 to June 7, visitors are invited to join in the fun and play the SUPER CHINA! game.

The SUPER CHINA! game is an interactive game created by Navin Rawanchaikul. It's a mixture of the world's most commercially-successful board game, Monopoly, and the realities inside the art world, where power and networking play important roles. Weaving elements from the Three Kingdoms period to today's China, this SUPER CHINA! game is a shortcut tool for anyone wanting to enter the art circus and offers strategies for survival for those arts professionals who are struggling to succeed.

Sign up now and find out what secrets lie behind the success of a super art player!

Games take place every Saturday and Sunday afternoons at 1:00, 2:30 and 4:00. Each game takes approximately 1 hour to play.