Ocula Conversation Hito Steyerl: How To Build a Sustainable Art World 'A Picture of War is Not War', we read in Hito Steyerl's iconic film November (2004), an essayistic Super 8 film tackling the definition of terrorism constructed around the figure of the artist's best friend Andrea Wolf, who was killed as a terrorist in 1998 in Eastern Anatolia after she joined the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party). Mixing documentary...
Ocula Report Aichi to Okayama: Art in Japan Looks to the Future 11 Oct 2019 : Stephanie Bailey for Ocula There has been a flurry of triennial and biennial art activity in Japan this year. The Aichi Triennale opened in Nagoya this August, sparking a national debate about the shutting down of a display of formerly censored works—the result of public backlash against a burnt image of Emperor Hirohito and a statue commemorating the women forced into...
Ocula Insight | Video Hans Hartung and Art Informel at Mazzoleni London (1 October 2019-18 January 2020) presents key works by the French-German painter while highlighting his connection with artists active in Paris during the 50s and 60s. In this video, writer and historian Alan Montgomery discusses Hartung's practice and its legacy.Born in Leipzig in 1904, Hans...
I will be presenting a work that relates to 'observing' method and experience; a work that refers to convictions and awareness. We decided to present this piece to fill The Armory Show with surprise, dynamism, and to make it look 10 years younger.
Lu Pingyuan is a young artist living in Shanghai. He is very special among the young artists from his generation in China. He recently started to create artworks related to 'ghost' stories and contemporary culture, which are excellent. His works are subtle and provide a unique perspective on the co-existence between globalization and one's own culture.
This exhibition was presented in the great hall of UCCA. It included 50 installations, 10 videos, 40 paintings and collages, performances and other works. This exhibition presented 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.
The title, Xu Zhen: A MadeIn Company Production, acknowledges the longstanding relationship between the artist’s individual practice and his sprawling involvement with the Shanghai contemporary art scene. 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. MadeIn encapsulates Xu Zhen’s unique conflation of art practice, curatorial work, and art promotion that has defined his multifarious career in the Shanghai art scene. 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.
Contemporary society is composed of countless companies. A company can multiply the energy of an individual. The creation of MadeIn Company was meant to change the world including ourselves – the differences and influences are quite visible.
We consider that exhibitions nowadays are a product, and that art is being sold, so…
Philip Tinari, aside from being a curator, is a Chinese son-in-law, so you can believe his choices.
Chinese contemporary art cannot provide a satisfying answer to the world. Chinese contemporary art nowadays is a farce filled with surprises.
MadeIn Company
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Xu Zhen
Artist Profile XU ZHEN® XU ZHEN® (徐震) is a Chinese conceptual artist and curator. Working across a variety of media, including installation, video, painting, and performance, he has established himself as an iconic figure in contemporary Chinese art.
Xu’s works combine a social critique of contemporary life with a dark sense of humour and an obvious, albeit ironic, disdain for the politics of art. His installations often take the form of elaborate, theatrical pranks. His ShanghART Supermarket, originally exhibited in 2007, replicates exactly an ordinary convenience store, though with empty products that are sold at the original price. Other, more recent works, have aimed to fuse elements of Chinese and Western cultures in a way that rejects typical perceptions of Chinese culture.
XU ZHEN® founded MadeIn Company, a collective contemporary art practice, in 2009. Xu has been producing works collaboratively since the collective’s inception, although several have been censored due to ‘inappropriate’ themes of violence and erotica. In 2014, Xu returned to his individual practice, though now as a ‘product’ of MadeIn Company, rather than its founder.
The artist’s recent solo exhibitions have included Movement Field at Long March Space, Beijing (2013); ShanghART Supermarket at ShanghART, Singapore (2014); Blissful As Gods at ShanghART H-Space, China (2014-2015); and Look Again at Pékin Fine Arts, Hong Kong (2015). Xu has exhibited at international institutions and biennales such as the Venice Biennale (both 2001 and 2005), the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; the Tate, Liverpool; and the Long Museum, Shanghai.
In 2004, Xu was awarded the prize for Best Artist at the China Contemporary Art Awards. He lives and works in Shanghai. 
