Chen Zhen - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Tuesday, October 12, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Galleria Continua, San Gimignano

  • Catalogue Essay

    Chen Zhen was an artist who thrived on contradictions and notions of duality. By incorporating everyday objects such as chairs, tables and candles in his installations, such daily objects assumed a new identity and materiality removed from their original functions. Through his work, Chen questioned the intricate relationship between the material and the spiritual, as well as the tensions between human beings, nature and objects.
     
    The present lot is part of Chen Zhen’s project Un Village Sans Frontières (A Village Without Borders, 2000), in which the artist worked with street children in Brazil to create an imaginary city of candle houses. The work directly addresses Chen’s lifelong concern with ‘transexperience’, a term he coined to describe his own experience as a Chinese immigrant in the West. Chen’s notion of transexperience suggests that we live in a world whose borders are constantly shifting through the globalisation of economies, religions, politics and cultures.
     

53

Un village sans frontières

2000
Wood chair and wax candles.
80 x 38 x 30 cm (32 x 14 x 12 1/2 in).

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

Estimate
£50,000 - 70,000 

Sold for £163,250

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

13 October 2010
London