2013
installation
13×1.5×3.5 m
Produced by MadeIn Company
An irreverent artist with a voracious appetite for global information and a unique ability to produce work across multiple platforms and media, Xu Zhen (b. 1977) is the key figure of the Shanghai art scene and a foundational figure for the generations of Chinese artists born since 1980. Including over 50 installation pieces, 10 videos, 40 painting and collage works, and several performances, together filling UCCA's signature Great Hall, this exhibition spans Xu Zhen's early works made in his own name beginning in the late 1990s, works produced under the "contemporary art creation company" MadeIn Company which he founded in 2009, as well as major new pieces produced specially for this exhibition under MadeIn Company's newly launched brand "Xu Zhen." Presented together, Xu Zhen's oeuvre reflects the lingering concerns of an artist participating in the international art world while remaining deeply skeptical of it and its conventions, most immediately the label "Chinese contemporary art." Xu Zhen's artworks probe the various mediations that corrupt the viewer's experience of an artwork, particularly in observing a culture that is not one's own. The exhibition is curated by UCCA Director Philip Tinari and UCCA Chief Curator Paula Tsai.
For more information, please read the "Xu Zhen: A MadeIn Company Production" press release.
"Xu Zhen is one of the few artists to enjoy fame and wealth in his early 20s. But, he found himself losing his curiosity and interest as an independent artist. So he announced his decision to change direction and founded a company, MadeIn, to produce'contemporary art creation'."
—China Daily