Artist Statement

Theme: Pacific Rim. Container Culture: Beijjing Container. Venue: South Hall

Zhong Chen (Prophecy) faithfully presents a set of original accounting paperwork, bank records, receipts and other historical artifacts that document the business transactions of the British American Tobacco Company in China during its formative years, and the artist Xu Bing’s personal financial transaction record with the Duke Foundation during the creation of The Tobacco Project in 2000.

Curator Zhang Ga:

Zhong Chen is one component of the site-specific work Tobacco Project. This part of the installation consists of a display pedestal encased with original accounting paperwork, bank records, receipts and other historical artifacts that document the business transactions of the British American Tobacco Company in China in its formative days. The display also contains the artist’s records of personal financial transactions with the Duke Foundation during the creation of the Tobacco Project in 2000. The project traces the trajectory of the multinational tobacco company’s expansion into the world’s most populous country and urges us to reflect on China’s modern and contemporary experience as a marketplace, as well as her interaction with global economy, implicitly invoking its multiple interpretations. Xu Bing’s Zhong Chen realizes its experimental quality by engaging art in a new kind of dialogue with commercial culture and international relations. The work is neither a representation of observed reality nor an installation of ready-made materials. Rather, it remains in close contact with reality while transforming reality. It would be futile to ask whether it is a “work of art” because Xu Bing did not make it as such and because its meaning can only be grasped when it is approached as part of a broad, complex social and political process.

• Xu Bing (CN/US) was born in Chongqing, China, in 1955 and grew up in Beijing. In 1975 he was relocated to the countryside for two years during the Cultural Revolution. In 1977 he enrolled in the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing, where he studied printmaking. He received an MFA from the Central Academy in 1987. In 1990 he moved to the United States and now makes his home in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been shown internationally I many exhibitions, include the 45th Venice Biennial; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; the Reina Sofia Museum (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia), Madrid; V&A, London; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; the Sydney Biennial; and many others. Xu Bing’s work has also appeared in high-school and college textbooks around the world, including Abram’s Art Past, Art Present, and Gardner’s Art through the Ages. In July of 1999, Xu Bing was awarded the MacArthur Award for Genius by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in recognition of his “originality, creativity, self-direction, and capacity to contribute importantly to society, particularly in print-making and calligraphy”. In September 2003, Xu Bing was awarded the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize for his work in Asian art and culture. In 2004, Xu Bing was awarded the first Wales International Visual Art Prize, Arta Mundi, one of the largest international prizes in the world. That year he also became a Coca-Cola Fellow of the American Academy in Berlin.