Born in China in 1956 and 1962 respectively, Cai Yuan and Jian Jun Xi have been living and working in the United Kingdom since the 1980s. Cai Yuan trained in oil painting at Nanjing College of Art, Chelsea College of Art and the Royal College of Art. Jianjun Xi trained at the Central Academy of Applied Arts in Beijing and later at Goldsmiths College. They started working as a performance duo in the late nineties with their action Two Artists Jump on Tracey Emin’s Bed (1999) at Tate Britain’s Turner Prize Exhibition.
Read MoreExhibitions include Silent Energy, Museum of Morden Art Oxford, 1998, Cities on the Move (Hayward Gallery) 1999, Shanghai Biennial 2000, Venice Biennale 2001 and Touring London (IniVA). Their film Two Artists Piss on Duchamp's Urinal was shown at the 9th Biennial of Moving Images in Geneva, and Dazed Eye, a film commissioned by Dazed & Confused and Film4, was shown in La Foret Arts Space, Tokyo. Cai & Xi`s Soya Sauce and Ketchup Fight performance show at the Liverpool Biennale 2002, a video screening in Live Culture at Tate Modern, Wandering Library for the 50th Venice Biennale and Sauce performance shown at the Prague Biennale 2003, and also a short film Monkey King cause havoc in the Heavenly Palace commissioned by British Museum 2004. Transposition, Office for Contemporary Art Norway; Apple of My Eye, V&A Museum, London; Dou-pi-gai: struggle criticise reform, performance, Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt, Berlin 2005; Vital int`l Performance Festival, Orbiz Square, Manchester; Point to the East, Strike in the West, photograph and performance, 798 Dashanzi, Beijing 2006; Transfiguration, performance, LTB Foundation, London; Legacy, Rossi & Rossi Ltd, London; Mad For Real Film, BBC big screen, Clayton Square, Liverpool; Soya Sauce and Ketchup-Universal Project, Louisiana Museum for Modern Art, Denmark 2007.
Their recent exhibitions include; Aircraft Carrier Project, Tokyo Gallery+BTAP, Beijing and English Lounge, Tang Contemporary, Beijing
