UCCA Beijing

Xu Zhen: A MadeIn Company Production

2014.1.19 - 2014.4.20

2013

installation

13×1.5×3.5 m

Produced by MadeIn Company

About

Location:  Great Hall and Lobby

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.

News

"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

Works in the exhibition

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Rainbow

1997-1998

Video

Shouting

1998

Video
4 Min
Photo credit: Xu Zhen

We will be back soon

2002

Video

The Starving of Sudan

2008

Installation, performance, photography

MadeIn Curved Vase

2013

Installation
Porcelain
17×17×38 cm
Produced by MadeIn Company

Movement Field

2012

Installation
Variable dimensions
Produced by MadeIn Company

Under Heaven-1802FI0138 (detail)

2012

Oil on canvas, aluminium
80×100×10 cm
Produced by MadeIn Company

Just as time is an object so all produced objects can be considered as crystalized time

2012

installation
Photograph of young student, knifes
Produced by MadeIn Company

If the truth hurts, it is the truth's fault

2012

Installation
Playing cards, rock
287×387×20 cm

Turbulent

2012

Action painting (spray paint)
Variable dimensions
Produced by MadeIn Company

6th March

2002

Performance

In Just a blink of an Eye

2005

Performance

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting

2010

Resin
C-Print on aluminum
150×217 cm

In mass exercise, the greater the conflict between theory and reality, the stronger its eagerness to impose beliefs on others

2010

Wax, military hats
C-Print on aluminum
150×262 cm

The bourgeoisie is not interested in the mad, but it is interested in power over the mad

2011

tri –ply wood,steel tube, rope
C-Print on aluminium
150×200 cm

Physique of Consciousness

2011

Performance, video

8848-1.86

2005

Mixed media installation, photographs, video Rock climbing equipment, refrigerating box, tents, etc.
Dimensions variable
Photo credit: Xu Zhen

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