XU ZHEN®

Perrotin Seoul is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Chinese artist
Xu Zhen, featuring major works spanning the development of his
flagship art brand, XU ZHEN®, since 2013.
Using both conceptual and pop strategies, Xu Zhen’s practice mounts
incongruous clashes between iconographies pertaining to distant
cultures, civilizations and ages to question the loss of context induced
by globalization. Ironically mirroring post-Mao China’s journey into
consumerism, Xu transforms himself into a brand with the creation of
his art corporation “MadeIn Company” in 2009 as a behavioral – and
almost performative – study of the symmetries between ideas, art and
business.
On display is his signature Under Heaven series, which was featured
in the 2014 Armory Show in New York to serve the commercial
campaign for the fair. Florae of vibrant colors are skillfully figured using
cream piping bags filled with oil colors, evoking the luscious icing on
a birthday cake. Fragrant and fragile, joyful and decadent, this
subconscious blur of decipherable imagery and extraneous elements
alludes to economic growth as a sumptuous, moveable feast – a
metaphor for the globalized hedonism in China. Conversely, Xu also
sees his pop-like “cake painting” as a collective representation of
childhood revelries and excess, a visual referent capable of conjuring
each individual’s inner experience. Considered thus, Under Heaven
reveals the duality of a sign system at the threshold between principled
art and superficial beauty; one which, as Barthes would say, “draws
attention to its own arbitrariness – which does not try to palm itself off
as “natural” but which, in the very moment of conveying a meaning,
communicates something of its own relative, artificial status as well.” 1
This harks back to Xu’s work from the 90’s, a time of ambiguities and
conceit amidst political recovery and economic boom. Here, Xu
reiterates his interrogation of art – its authority, competence and
limitations – vis-à-vis his consciousness of the world in the spirit of
Deng Xiaoping’s apocryphal exhortation, “To become rich is glorious”.
Eternity is a series of sculptural installations that amalgamate
archetypes of art history and great civilizations. The collision between
cultural symbols allows Xu to subtly touch upon the various power
struggles in human history, a leitmotif that continues with his more
recent canvas series titled Evolution. Embodying the violent nature of
cultural hybridization, the pairings of traditional African and Chinese
motifs further problematize the loss of meaning and context induced
by the precipitation of globalization in the digital era. Here we return to
the idea of an arbitrary “sign” – ever elusive to the museum or gallery
visitor – which hints at the great divide we are so accustomed to in the
age of post-truth and post-Internet where nothing is quite as it seems.
A similar concern with appearance and truth underlies the Metal
Language series, wherein phrases from political cartoons are
presented in an intensive manner using metal chains applied to a
mirroring surface. The graffiti-like composition seemingly celebrates
the radical political language it concerns, at the same time as it is
betrayed by the extravagance of the metallic gloss. This contradiction
plunges the work into a suspended state, halfway between
meaningfulness and meaninglessness.
XU ZHEN®
Founded by artist Xu Zhen in 2013, XU ZHEN® is the flagship art
brand of MadeIn Company, which pivots on the idea of artistic
production as a framework for creation, discussion and curating
exhibitions. Xu Zhen has described the company as a mode of how
conceptual art is usually perceived, “We all hope this thing is made,
and someone is there behind it […] [This] represents a method and
not content, although we can still insert content into the
methodology.”
Xu Zhen
Born in 1977, living and working in Shanghai, Xu Zhen is a leading
Chinese artist and curator, and the founder of MadeIn Company. He
has exhibited an extensive body of work across photography,
installation and video at international museums and biennales, such
as: Guggenheim Museum, New York (2017); Sydney Biennial
(2016); Al Riwaq Art Center, Qatar (2016); Long Museum, Shanghai
(2015); Armory Show, New York (2014); Lyon Biennial (2013);
Hayward Gallery, London (2012); Tate Liverpool (2007); MoMA
PS1, New York (2006); Venice Biennale (2001, 2005); Mori Art
Museum, Tokyo (2005); and The Museum of Modern Art, New York
(2004), among others. In 2004, he won the prize for ‘Best Artist’ at
the China Contemporary Art Award.
In 2006, Xu Zhen co-founded Art-Ba-Ba (www.art-ba-ba.com), a
leading online forum for discussion and critique of contemporary art
in Shanghai. In 2009, he established ‘MadeIn Company’, a
contemporary art creation corporate, focused on the production of
creativity, and devoted to the research of contemporary culture’s
infinite possibilities. In 2013, MadeIn Company launched XU
ZHEN®. In 2014, MadeIn Company established MadeIn Gallery
and in November 2016 launched the first “Xu Zhen Store” in
Shanghai.