xu min is standing in front of the 'purification room'.
it was first created in 2000 in collaboration with xu min.
chen zhen introduced this piece as a 'monochrome tomb':
'the natural material I use - helps figure out the source
which the objects come from as well as the place where
they will go back after their circulation through the society.
the purifying elements sacrifice those objects
after their utilisation, and sublimate a latent spirit;
they provoke a new destiny to the fatal conclusion of
these objects'.

--
what is your role in preparing exhibitions of
chen zhen's work?
like lots of exhibitions, these are always done with
the help of many people. notably there are the
gallery continua in san gimignano and shanghai,
the kunsthalle in vienna, and the mart museum
organization in trento. for my role, it is to help
these organizations.
I rely on the experiences of working next to
my husband chen zhen, for almost ten years.
he influenced me a lot and we discussed a lot.
I have kind of slowly entered into the sense of ...
not only putting on an exhibition but also,
most importantly, I sense how to release the energy
of chen zhen's work.
after the death of my husband, I sense it even
more. I feel a heavy responsibility to engage in his
thoughts on simple presentation.
I try to not to forget what he wanted to say and now
this energy flows through me, sometimes it's through
my hands directly, but its up to me to do justice.
that is to say, in exhibitions like this one even the
lighting and many small things are all important
to me in order to extract the force from his work.

who were some of chen zhen's artistic influences?
chen zhen obviously loved many, many artists.
he always saw the positive point, the strong
point in people. so he read through many,
many books from many artists,
but the one person who I believe he most often
read the books of is beuys.
they even have some small points in common.
they both saw the value of life.
beuys was also very very sick on a body
health level. on the other side their mentality was
very strong, the engagement in their art, politics;
their attitude. in fact, I believe chen zhen tried to
do the same, it's the same attitude.

how did chen zhen's sickness impact his art?
the disease influenced his work, but he transformed
it into a positive thing.
he worked non stop because he wanted to develop
an important subject. he wanted to become a doctor
and he treated his body as a laboratory.
he wanted to heal himself but also heal the world.
because the world and the body are linked.
he wanted to develop this subject as a subject of life.
if he were still living, I think he would be developing
lots of projects in this sense.
he always worked in this relation between man,
society and nature. the societal sickness - it's a mental
sickness. chen zhen had many worries for this.
before anything, you have to heal the mentality,
heal the problems, society and nature.