Xu Zhen

An irreverent artist with a voracious appetite for global information and a unique ability to produce work across multiple platforms and media, Xu Zhen is the key figure of the Shanghai art scene and a foundational figure for the generations of Chinese artists born since 1980. A prankster provocateur in the vein of Yves Klein, Xu Zhen engages a variety issues with wryness, from the politics of intercultural and international viewing in Seeing One’s Own Eyes: Middle East Contemporary Art (2009) (a “group show” of works by fictional Middle Eastern artists), to voyeurism and ethical anxiety in depictions of race and suffering in The Starving of Sudan (2008) (an in-gallery tableau recreating Kevin Carter’s iconic 1994 photograph of a starving infant), to satire of de rigeur contemporary art practices in 8848-1.86 (2005) (wherein the artist “removes” a chunk of Mount Everest equivalent to his own height from the summit and brings it back for display in the museum). 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.

In 2009, Xu Zhen dissolved his art practice into the “contemporary art creation company” MadeIn Company. Acting as the group’s CEO, Xu Zhen continues to undertake creative projects, artworks, and exhibitions under this revised mantle. The artist’s withdrawal from his own name marks a rejection of the persona-driven contemporary art world while acknowledging that, since he first began working with art in 1997, Xu Zhen’s artwork has always been a collaborative effort.

In 2001 he became the youngest Chinese artist to participate in the Venice Biennale and in 2005 he represented China at the 51st Venice Biennale. Solo exhibitions as himself and as MadeIn Company have been presented at ShanghArt Gallery in Shanghai, S.M.A.K. in Ghent, Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, Kunsthalle Bern, Muzeum Montanelli in Prague, and Minsheng Art Museum in Shanghai. His work has been included in group exhibitions at institutions including PS1 Contemporary Art Center in New York, Hayward Gallery in London, 2012, Gallery of Modern Art and Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Witte de With in Rotterdam, and Mystetskyi Arsenal in Kiev.

Courtesy of Ullens Center for Contemporary Art