From 12 January to 11 February, 2018, UCCA with EDC aka Etalier des Chene (陈冠希) to present "Music is Art,”  an immersive experience exploring the artistry behind musical production - an element that increasingly commercialized record labels are neglecting. Coinciding with the release of the album, “Music is Art” will present 22 artworks produced by EDC himself (陈冠希) and/or in concert with an artist he admires. Each work corresponds and references to each song from his new album, “A Little Monkey”.

The artist (EDC) has been collaborating with UCCA since the Center’s 2014 exhibition “The Los Angeles Project,” where he appeared on the latest edition of Alex Israel’s “As it Lays,” a series of videos which examine the psychology of fame. EDC (陈冠希) revisits this motif in the song “Self Conscious”, spending three days in a glass room erected in the UCCA exhibition space, in an attempt to explore the pressures of living—even sleeping—under public scrutiny. “Be Myself,” asks EDC (陈冠希) in the track of the same name, “or who you want me to be?”

Other works created by the artist himself include KARMA IS A BITCH, a meditation on the age of paparazzi; FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELT, a collage of boarding passes and travel tags; WE ARE ALL THE SAME SOMEHOW, a tribute to the possibilities of live concert, INFERNAL AFFAIRS, a video that the artist shot during an expedition to the north pole; SAVING GRACE, a tribute by EDC (陈冠希) to his partner, Qin Shupei; and CLOUD 9, an oil and acrylic landscape. Collaborative works include MY DARK TWISTED FANTASY, with syan aka MC Yan , a tongue-in-cheek examination of replaceable and irreplaceable types of love; THIS LITTLE NAUGHTY MONKEY EDC, produced with Medicom Toy, which announces the simian trickster-figure that will appear throughout his album; THAT FEELING U CANT DESCRIBE, made with National Geographic videographer, Russell McLaughlin; BLOOD ON THE LEASE, a hologram of the artist-as-martyr; HER, a VR video in which lifelike versions of EDC (陈冠希) and Akimoto Kozue get up close and personal with the viewer, made with visual effects studio Digital Domain; R. KELLY, an installation with Noah Sherburn featuring a set of radiators and humidifiers; SKY BLUE PINK, an abstract print designed with Alex Israel using the latter’s characteristic dreamy pinks and blues; and GOD = YOU, an installation designed with fashion photographer Nick Knight that is a comment on iconoclasm in the 21st century. EDC (陈冠希) will also be exhibiting works from his own collection such as Philippine social realist artist Mark Justiniani’s Hole, corresponding to the song “Get Down”; teamLab’s video installation, UNIVERSE OF WATER PARTICLES, corresponding to his song, “Tears in the Melody”; WE RAN OUT OF TISSUES, by fashion illustrator Kelly Beeman’s interpretation of two women in the song, “Baby Don’t Cry”; Azuma Makoto’s BOTANICAL SCULPTURE “HYBRID” VOL.3, a half-organic, half-synthetic assemblage paired up with the EDC (陈冠希) song “No Make Up”; A PRAYER, a paper study piece by artist Wes Lang in reference to the song “Subconscious”; and Shara Hughes’s expressionist painting LIKE STARING AT THE SUN, which corresponds to the song “Half My Life.”

Taken in total, “Music is Art” is the narrative of the artist EDC’s efforts to stay authentic after achieving cultural prominence, and serves both as reminder of the expressive and creative possibilities behind music, and as exhortation to viewers to remember that, in the words of EDC (陈冠希), “everything is art; cooking is art; conversation is art; art is art,” as long as we respect and treat it in the manner it deserves.