Water Play: With the Sea as Stage and Protagonist
In this Viewing Room, we wanted to create a conversation between Lin Chun 林春 and Nina Wengel—two artists who have never exhibited together, yet whose works compellingly resonate across cultures, generations, and artistic mediums.
Lin Chun graduated from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in 1985 and is recognized as a key founder of the Xiamen Dada movement 厦门达达 – China’s radical 1980s response to Western Dada. Combining absurdity with Daoist and Chan Buddhist thought, the movement challenged cultural orthodoxy and the commercialization of art.
Nina Wengel graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2008. Her work reflects the artistic currents of the 2000s and 2010s, engaging with relational aesthetics and ‘faction’ (fact-meets-fiction), while also exploring art as a spiritual and healing practice.
Although Lin Chun and Nina Wengel clearly represent different artistic generations, their practices reveal unexpected affinities. Despite their distinct cultural and generational contexts, both artists share a sensibility that balances social critique and seriousness with a sense of playfulness. Another point of connection is their shared fascination with the sea. Both live in harbor cities – Wengel in Svendborg, Denmark, and Lin Chun in Xiamen, Southern China – where daily proximity to the ocean leaves a visible imprint on their work. Lin Chun, for example, has created a series of performances along various coastlines, while Wengel has produced numerous collages and paintings depicting ocean sunsets just outside her studio.
Playing Water Chess 下水棋
“Playing Water Chess” was performed at the narrow stretch of sea between Lin's city of residence Xiamen and Jinmen (Taiwan), similar to how the Chinese chess board is divided by a river, separating the players' sides. For the performance, he invited a Taiwanese student to play chess with him by the sea. The performance took place at low tide on the Eastern coast of Xiamen—directly across from Jinmen. As the tide rose, the chessboard was overturned by the water, leaving neither winner or loser.
Lin Chun, "Playing Water Chess", 2002, performance
Healing the Water
"Healing the Water" is an ongoing one-day participatory performance, first staged in 2011 at Amager Beach in Copenhagen. Here, Nina Wengel invites participants to suggest songs, which are played through speakers and broadcast directly toward the sea. Each performance is based on a unique playlist, serving as a collective gift to the ocean – conveyed through the same medium that often harms it: human-made sound.
Nina Wengel, "Healing the Water", 2011, performance
The Sea is Square 大海是正方形
This series begins with soft, S-shaped curves evoking ocean waves. Gradually, the waves transform into squares. This transition from the organic to the rigid echoes Mondrian’s simplification of a tree into a grid pattern, or Malevich’s “Black Square,” where form is reduced to its essence. Here, Lin Chun’s fascination with impulsivity and chaos, embodied by the sea, merges with his interest in rational expression. The artwork was destroyed during the Xiamen Dada art-burning incident of 1986.
Lin Chun, "The Sea is Square," 1986, ink on paper
Drawing Waves 画浪
In Lin Chun’s performance "Drawing Waves", a Dadaist gesture unfolds through a seemingly futile act. Since 2017, the artist repeatedly tries to capture the ocean’s waves by drawing them at different shorelines, but each wave inevitably washes away the marks, erasing every attempt. This Sisyphean cycle of creation and erasure embodies a delicate balance between absurdity and poetry.
Lin Chun, "Drawing the Waves III: 'Leave' or 'Remain'", 2019, performance
Oh, what a beautiful eternity
Similar meditative repetition of action is central to Nina Wengel’s ongoing painting performance project, “Oh, What a Beautiful Eternity,” which began during her residency at San Cataldo – an old convent on the Amalfi Coast. There, she spent a month studying various religious and spiritual texts on the transition from life to death.
Nina Wengel, "Oh, what a beautiful eternity", 2010-ongoing, painting series, installation view
Nina Wengel reflects: “My interest in this subject emerged after a rather tricky operation and a psychosis, which led to a haunting fear of death and the afterlife. (…) I made various drawings and collages during my stay, and one of them I have been sticking to ever since – a repetition of a setting sun, visualized as a half-circle. Since then, I have kept the habit of occasionally reverting to this motif and the rather impossible attempt to create an eternity.”
People Wrapped in Red Cloth, Reef, Sea, and Sky 红布裹着的人及礁石大海天穹
Lin Chun created this work one morning in 1986, days before the seminal exhibition "Xiamen Dada — Modern Art Exhibition", which famously culminated in the artists’ public burning of their artworks. On a spontaneous impulse, he grabbed a red drape and headed to the beach with three male students who had volunteered to participate in the performance. The resulting image – showing the three figures lying face-down before a triangular rock formation—has since become iconic and widely reproduced.
Lin Chun, "People Wrapped in Red Cloth, Reef, Sea, and Sky", 1986, performance photograph
In You, The Heavenly Light Reflects
Interestingly, both the rock and the sea also appear as recurring elements in Nina Wengel’s paintings. In her work "In You, The Heavenly Light Reflects", a mountain-like rock formation resembles a giant healing crystal—imbued with spiritual and magical associations.
Nina Wengel ,"In You, The Heavenly Light Reflects", 2024, painting
Serious Play
Nina Wengel’s "The Sun Chariot" and Lin Chun’s "Fishing in the City 城中垂钓" are both examples of how the artists navigate between serious social critique and playful expression.
In "The Sun Chariot", Nina Wengel transports a large sun sculpture by car to the beach, referencing the horse-drawn sun disc from Nordic mythology believed to travel across the sky. Through this act, she delivers a wry commentary on modernity and myth, while also engaging with themes of cyclical time and divine presence.
Nina Wengel, "The Sun Chariot", 2017, performance
Nina Wengel, "The Sun Chariot", 2017, performance
Nina Wengel, "The Sun Chariot", 2017, performance
Lin Chun performed "Fishing in the City 城中垂钓" in June 2015 as a three-day performance, with a different 'fishing' location each day. Each day was structured around a specific theme: Fishing for Thoughts, Fishing for Survival, and Fishing for Desires. Blending humor and poetic nuance, the work offered a layered exploration of contemporary urban life.
"Fishing for Thoughts", 2015, performance
"Fishing for Survival", 2015, performance
"Fishing for Desires", 2015, performance
