CONTAGION - by BURENJARGAL Ulziibayar
08 May - 03 June 2026
Khaan Gallery
08 May - 03 June 2026
Khaan Gallery
Burenjargal's solo exhibition Халдвар, opened at Khaan Gallery on the evening of May 8, is a quietly unsettling meditation on the things we let infect us — money, vanity, appetite, and control.
The works speak in a shared surrealist dialect, each one a body altered or replaced. A robed figure stands headless but for an oversized wine glass brimming with red — intoxication rendered literal, the drinker consumed by the very thing meant to be consumed. Nearby, a pale, bound figure curls atop a locked post, padlocks marching down its length like the visible weight of things we cannot unfasten ourselves from.
Elsewhere, satire turns explicitly political and economic: a carved wooden "one billion dollar" bill bears the face of Chinggis Khaan in place of a US president — a sly collision of Mongolian identity and the mythology of American wealth, rendered in warm, aged wood that mimics old currency. Facing it, a bronze horse in ceremonial armor stands riderless, dignified and hollow at once, a monument to power stripped of its subject.
A slighter, stranger piece — a toy horse on wheels, its legs stretched thin and spindly, Dalí-like — offers a moment of dark whimsy amid the show's heavier themes, suggesting fragility beneath even our most steadfast symbols.
Taken together, the exhibition doesn't moralize so much as diagnose: Burenjargal is interested in what we absorb without noticing, and what it costs us. Technically assured and conceptually sharp, Халдвар marks a strong, cohesive statement from a sculptor unafraid to let her materials carry the weight of the metaphor.
The works speak in a shared surrealist dialect, each one a body altered or replaced. A robed figure stands headless but for an oversized wine glass brimming with red — intoxication rendered literal, the drinker consumed by the very thing meant to be consumed. Nearby, a pale, bound figure curls atop a locked post, padlocks marching down its length like the visible weight of things we cannot unfasten ourselves from.
Elsewhere, satire turns explicitly political and economic: a carved wooden "one billion dollar" bill bears the face of Chinggis Khaan in place of a US president — a sly collision of Mongolian identity and the mythology of American wealth, rendered in warm, aged wood that mimics old currency. Facing it, a bronze horse in ceremonial armor stands riderless, dignified and hollow at once, a monument to power stripped of its subject.
A slighter, stranger piece — a toy horse on wheels, its legs stretched thin and spindly, Dalí-like — offers a moment of dark whimsy amid the show's heavier themes, suggesting fragility beneath even our most steadfast symbols.
Taken together, the exhibition doesn't moralize so much as diagnose: Burenjargal is interested in what we absorb without noticing, and what it costs us. Technically assured and conceptually sharp, Халдвар marks a strong, cohesive statement from a sculptor unafraid to let her materials carry the weight of the metaphor.
Address: Khan Bank Art Gallery, Khaan Bank tower, Chingis Avenue 6, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Opening Hours: Monday to Friday, 10am to 5pm
Travel: Chinggis Avenue 6, south from the National Stadium and next to the Naadam Centre
For press information and images please contact:
Email: [email protected]
Opening Hours: Monday to Friday, 10am to 5pm
Travel: Chinggis Avenue 6, south from the National Stadium and next to the Naadam Centre
For press information and images please contact:
Email: [email protected]
