Conceptual artist, curator and entrepreneur Xu Zhen is a leading figure among the younger generation of Chinese contemporary artists. His extensive body of work across multiple platforms and media is intended to push boundaries, satirise cultural assumptions and confront a range of socio-political taboos. Xu’s pseudo-documentary 8848 – 1.86 (2005) recounts his team scaling the world’s highest mountain and cutting off its top. The multi-media installation comprises a refrigerated vitrine displaying a snowy peak, video of the expedition, oxygen masks and equipment allegedly used to make the trek. The artist’s claim to have taken part of the mountain to China is a witty and provocative play on foreign perceptions of China’s insensitivity to surrounding nations.
Xu Zhen 'Artists Change the Way People Think'
Artist, curator and entrepreneur Xu Zhen is a leading figure among the younger generation of Chinese contemporary artists
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Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art for which the idea (or concept) behind the work is more important than the finished art object. It emerged as an art movement in the 1960s and the term usually refers to art made from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s.
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Multi-media
The term multi-media describes artworks made from a range of materials and include an electronic element such as audio or video
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Installation art
The term installation art is used to describe large-scale, mixed-media constructions, often designed for a specific place or for a temporary period of time
