Xu Zhen (Produced by MadeIn Company)
Corporate
September 27, 2015–January 10, 2016
Opening: September 26, 6pm
Performance as prelude: Inventing Ritual. A Contemporary Art Pattern, September 24, 6pm
Kunsthaus Graz
Universalmuseum Joanneum
Lendkai 1
8020 Graz
Austria
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–5pm
T +43 316/8017 9200
kunsthausgraz [at] museum-joanneum.at
The exhibition Corporate deals with identities and the reworking of cultural heritage in an ever-more conformist world. Not least of all, it tackles prejudices existing between East and West.
Xu Zhen (born 1977, Shanghai) is one of the most virtuosic of the leading figures of a more recent generation of Chinese artists. His artistic strategies veer between an ironic critique of the system and an “art of conforming” to global economic structures, the partial utilisation of conceptual art, and a craftsman’s precision. His often theatrical and provocative sculptures, pictures, performances and videos comment on our short-lived, consumer-oriented society, interrogating where our behaviour will lead us in the future.
Both the exhibition and its catalogue focus on the works produced by Xu Zhen since 2009 in conjunction with his firm, MadeIn Company (i.e. “made in”). Through the challenging design and concept of the exhibition, as well as the accompanying essays, the emphasis lies on Xu Zhen’s engagement with art as product—moving between easy consumption and provocative commercialisation.
Curated by Katrin Bucher Trantow and Peter Pakesch
In cooperation with steirischer herbst
