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2014.11.11-2014.12.26
ShanghART main space & ShanghART H-Space, Shanghai, China“My work is to find a new perspective on different cultures. When you, as a human being, are confident enough to look at these ready-mades, what you need to do is to constantly break the notion of stereotypes and achieve a new ego..”
- XU Zhen
XU Zhen: Blissful As Gods produced by MadeIn Company will open on November 11th at ShanghART in Shanghai. This solo exhibition will bring XU Zhen’s latest works including installations, sculptures and two-dimensional works.
XU Zhen’s practice incorporates a wide range of media, such as painting, sculpture, installation, video, photography and performance, often within a single piece. He possesses a strong thirst for knowledge and distinctive integration ability towards the extremely multifarious global information network, out of which, he creates multi-media and cross-platform works.
For example, in XU Zhen’s early video work Shouting (1998), a moving crowd faces away from the camera until startled by screams, passers-by all turn around almost in unison (a reaction that elicits laughs from whomever is behind the camera). This work, together with another early video work Rainbow (1998), marked XU Zhen’s name as the youngest Chinese artist to participate in the Venice Biennale (2005 and 2007).
In 2007, XU Zhen’s installation project ShanghART SUPERMARKET (2007) consisted in a 1:1 scale replica of a typical Chinese convenient store at Art Basel Miami Beach. This store was filled with packages and wrappings containing, literally, nothing. The false appearance of the shop, or of the ghostly merchandise as such, triggered an extensive debate over the illusory booming phenomenon of the art market.
Eternity is another essential series created by XU Zhen in 2014. It consists of sculptural compositions from reproductions of Western and Asian headless statues displayed in museums throughout the world, grafted and assembled together. This is undoubtedly the most accurate cliché about the enormous amount of Chinese art.
Along with its celestial nature, XU Zhen: Blissful as Gods will further challenge the concept of “recombination”, it will reconstruct commonly known traditional Buddhist statues, using materials beyond all expectations according to a hidden logic. A new visual perception will be born and quaintly coincide with the world around, thus initiating a dialogue with each other. This dialogue between one ideology and another, will involve culture, history, art, religion, tradition, political space… Through this re-composition, all the materials’ inherent tradition and meaning will be rejected, presenting an intense estrangement and irritation. All these works will be gathered in one exhibition space. Subversions of cultural clashes will create a great impact on viewers. The effrontery and provocation that emanate from MadeIn/Xu Zhen’s art creation as a response to reality will all contribute to the abrupt and chaotic atmosphere of this exhibition.