Skira Chen Zhen: Short-circuits

Accompanying the homonymous exhibition, the catalogue "Short-circuits" includes in-depth documentation of a vast selection of installations made by Chen Zhen from 1991 to 2000, the year of his untimely death. The publication contains pivotal texts, including essays by authors Alexandra Munroe, chief curator, Asian art, and senior advisor, Global Arts, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and director, Curatorial Affairs, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project; and Marco Scotini, director of the Visual Arts and Curating Studies Department at NABA, Milan, and artistic director of FM Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea, Milan. The volume opens with an essay by Vicente Todolí, the exhibition curator, who presents key concepts coined by Chen Zhen using words by the artist himself. The book also includes detailed descriptions of each work on display and with a selection of preparatory drawings and sketches made by the artist. Chen Zhen (1955, Shanghai – 2000, Paris) developed his practice beginning in the late 1970s. Born and raised in Shanghai, China, he lived through the Cultural Revolution and, in 1986, moved to Paris. Here he gradually approached installation art, presenting everyday objects assembled in compositions that relate them to a metaphorical dimension. Chen Zhen’s practice reflects, in a paradigmatic way, his desire to find a visual synthesis that can integrate the aesthetic qualities of his homeland with the places he explores, in a fluid and constant exchange between Eastern and Western thinking.