chen zhen, together with chinese artists huang
yongping and cai guo-qiang, disillusioned by
post-maoist reform politics, left china in the mid-eighties.
isolation, censorship, and constant repression by the
chinese communist party constituted a tenor according
to which a political threat was suspected to linger
behind every new artwork, meanwhile the chinese
avant-garde artists sought to create harmony by
difference. as the door to the united states was
closed to them, chen zhen went in 1986 to paris.

he was a boundary crosser, a ‘cultural homeless’.
his work of communication and cultural confrontation
unfolds the artist’s determined utopia of multicultural
dialogue.
‘in fact, I’m becoming a hybrid man, an amphibian,
why not?’
chen zhen

--
‘the voice of migrators’
the exile sharpened his awareness of the subtle
transitions and differences, shifts and movements
permanently resulting from today’s cultural and
civilizational processes. the fragile balance of
‘the voice of migrators’ , an oversized textile ball
from which the multilingual murmur of a telephone
answering machine is heard , illustrates a vision
which does not pinpoint the individual on one ethnic
position but gently integrates individual cultural identity
into the framework of the totality of existence.

‘social investigation – shanghai 1’
when chen zhen returned to china he used
photography to reveal the changes and
development of shanghai following the reform and
the greater openness in economic and political
matters that ensued.

‘un village sans frontieres’ and ‘beyond the vulnerability’
besides exhibitions in museums and galleries,
he was also very interested in contributing to
shows on specific themes; one of these resulted in
‘beyond the vulnerability’. to make this work,
chen zhen spent a month, with the support of a charity
organization, living with homeless children in
salvador de bahia in brazil. through art he helped the
children to understand and analyze the city by studying
six different architectural styles associated with six
different social strata. in the process he stimulated their
curiosity in life, enhanced their understanding of
society and nurtured their dream of having a ‘house’
of their own. at the end of the project the children
created over thirty small houses made from candles.
six drawings illustrate the gradual development of this
project.