Sun Yuan was born in 1972 in Beijing, and Peng Yu was born in 1974 in Jiamusi, China. Both artists studied oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. After participating in pathbreaking exhibitions in China, they rose to prominence as independent artists in the late 1990s, and formed a collaborative partnership in 2000. Since then, they have incorporated unconventional, organic materials into their practice, which crosses mediums and challenges systems of political and social authority. Their large installations, which often incorporate technological components, comment critically on the modern understanding and exercise of political constructs like the nation-state, sovereign territory, freedom, and democracy. Sun Yuan & Peng Yu’s works often instigate powerful physical and psychological reactions in the viewer. Freedom (2009) is a gigantic mechanical installation featuring a rubber hose suspended midair inside a hermetic steel cube. Connected to a timer-controlled pump, it intermittently shoots hydraulic blasts, triggering the hose to brutally thrash against the floor and the walls due to the extreme water pressure. The work is circumscribed by more than just the timer that controls the hose; the spectator can only peek through a tiny peephole in a metal plate to see the installation. The instant transformation of the hose into a deadly threat points to certain paradoxes of freedom: first, when unleashed, a powerful aspiration toward liberation may not spare blood or sacrifice, and second, in some societies, so-called freedom often takes shape in a very prescribed manner. Such investigations are more pronounced in the Guggenheim-commissioned Can’t Help Myself (2016), which engages a programmed robotic machine to evoke the conditions of surveillance and warfare surrounding border control. Sun Yuan & Peng Yu have held solo exhibitions at Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing (2009); Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore (2012); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2012–13); and Gare Saint Sauveur, Lille, France (2013). The artists have also participated in numerous group exhibitions including the Lyon Biennial, France (2000); Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2004); Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection, Kunstmuseum Bern (2005); Liverpool Biennial (2006); Breaking Forecast: 8 Key Figures of China’s New Generation Artists, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2009–10); Sydney Biennial (2010); 15 Years Chinese Contemporary Art Award, Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2014); Chinese Whispers: Recent Art from the Sigg and M+ Sigg Collections, Kunstmuseum Bern and Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern (2016); and Tales of Our Time, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2016–17). They live and work in Beijing.