Oil on canvas mounted on aluminum board

60×80×5.5 cm. 23 5/8×31 1/2× 2 1/8 in

Titled in Chinese, signed in Chinese and English, dated and located in Chinese on upper right

LITERATURE
1994, Chao Chung-Hsiang Posthumous Work Exhibition, National Taiwan Museum of Art, Taichung, p.87
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Europe

Sweet and Alluring, Lingering in Memory
Xu Zhen & MadeIn Company
Born in Shanghai, China, Xu Zhen graduated from Shanghai Arts and Crafts College in 1996, and following graduation, he began his extensive artistic practice, which touched on a raft of artistic forms, from painting, sculpture, to installation art, video, photography, and performance art. In 2001, the then 24-year-old was the youngest Chinese artist to participate in the 49th Venice Biennale. In 2009, Xu found MadeIn Company, a name coming from the English prepositional verb “made in”, which is nearly homophonic to the company’s Chinese name 没顶 （Pinyin： méi dǐng）. Being the founder and owner of MadeIn gives Xu Zhen identities and core difference from being just an artist： as an entrepreneur to plan, to promote and even create art like a product, which has adding diversity to his artistic career and enabled him to become one of the iconic figures of Chinese contemporary art.
The work Under Heaven-2802CF1312 comes from Xu Zhen and MadeIn Company’s most recognizable Under Heaven series, in which the artist uses a highly innovative method of creation to place oil paints in a piping bag to be squeezed in order to form a derivative pattern, making the creative process as much fun as decorating a cake. In this work, the pigments in the piping bag were squeezed to form a dense, intertwined arrangement of pastel-colored flowers on the aluminum plate. The oil paints exhibit smooth and fragile textures, which, when interspersed with shades of pink in the background, form a huge, decorated cream cake that looks romantic, sweet, and delicious all at once. Looking down from above, one can easily make out the ebbing-and-flowing undulations of the work’s curves and edges, like a beautiful model of a landscape or an aerial view of a city, and for this very reason, the work is aptly titled Under Heaven, a reference to the entire world. Through a brand-new visual form, the artist gives a nod to Neo-Pop Art in the context of globalization. Using a commercialized form of expression, he deciphers the ivory tower of lofty, idealistic, and classic art, and the work allows the artist to exhibit his direct and simple attitude toward life, thereby producing an enchanting visual creation.

Price estimate:
HKD: 160, 000 - 250, 000
USD: 20, 500 - 32, 100

Auction Result:
HKD: --