La Voie du Sommeil - Sleeping Tao
1992
Water, pigment, items, light box, metal, neon, wood, hot-plates,
250 x 143 x 250 cm (98 7/16 x 56 5/16 x 98 7/16 in.) (each)
Three bare beds each cover different types of objects (aluminum spittoons, banknotes, engine parts) selected for their prosaic nature. In front of each bed, a screen shows images of a mountainous landscape. Apparently banal, this installation calls for a different reading: these are in fact Chinese funerary beds and the idyllic images are of mountains of rubbish.
Chinese artist Zhen Chen typically subverts traditional, vernacular furniture to give it a new form and a new, more spiritual use. Each of his ambitious installations is testament to his quest for dialogue between tradition and modernity in our materialist, technological cultures, using examples from both the East and the West.
La voie du sommeil (Sleeping Tao) was first shown by the Pinault Collection in the exhibition À Triple tour (“triple locked”) at the Paris Conciergerie, in 2013.
Chinese artist Zhen Chen typically subverts traditional, vernacular furniture to give it a new form and a new, more spiritual use. Each of his ambitious installations is testament to his quest for dialogue between tradition and modernity in our materialist, technological cultures, using examples from both the East and the West.
La voie du sommeil (Sleeping Tao) was first shown by the Pinault Collection in the exhibition À Triple tour (“triple locked”) at the Paris Conciergerie, in 2013.
Exhibitions
Chen Zhen © Adagp, Paris.
Chen Zhen © Adagp, Paris.
Courtesy: Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Les Moulins / Habana
Photo:Ela Bialkowska
Chen Zhen © Adagp, Paris.
Courtesy: Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Les Moulins / Habana
Photo:Ela Bialkowska
Chen Zhen © Adagp, Paris.
Courtesy: Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Les Moulins / Habana
Photo:Ela Bialkowska
Chen Zhen © Adagp, Paris.
Courtesy: Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Les Moulins / Habana
Photo: Michele Alberto Sereni
Chen Zhen © Adagp, Paris.
Courtesy: Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Beijing / Les Moulins / Habana
Photo: Michele Alberto Sereni
