Tianzhuo Chen: The Dust
Tianzhuo Chen's latest three-channel video work The Dust presents a performance that situates farming tools and ceremonial objects as the primary protagonists, while humans remain noticeably absent. The artist’s lens shifts from the water-powered prayer wheels in Cuogao Village to the celestial burial ground at Damu Temple, telling a story from the beginning of life, evolution, and blooming desires to perishing bodies, through shots of farming and ceremonial relics.
The online viewing room will be launched from 30 March 18:00 to 12 April 18:00 (CST), 2021.
Courtesy the artist
Courtesy of the artist
The video takes on a Sisyphean quality — the tools and relics of worship symbolize the hardships through which humans atone for original sin. A performance without the presence of human figures therefore has no social order. Romances, fights, and disasters never exist, and the only events that take place are those deriving from the original source of everything.
Courtesy of the artist and Macalline Art Center.
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
no generations
no future
no past
an endless geographic land of micro-meshing
limitless webs of merging
leaking
interweaving
coexistence of the multiples
aimless
careless
needless
thoughtless
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy the artist
This sudden situation in 2020 has broken everyone's inherent lifestyle. The life circle has been reduced and the timeline has been lengthened. At the same time, it has also thrown us into the question of how to face the future ecosystem. Tianzhuo Chen, who is accustomed to creating through performances, returned to Tibet again when he was isolated from the epidemic and when his artistic creation suddenly encountered a bottleneck, and decided to shoot a "performance" that was very different from the past.
"I came to Tibet this time to shoot new videos. I want to shoot a performance without humans or a ceremony site without human participation. It will have human traces but no human actual participation."
—— SUPERELLE × Tianzhuo Chen-World Stage
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
trembling twilight sweeps away the remains
skies echoes skies
earth touches earth
on the naked land where grow the naked lives
the fable may only be written
when the beginning is no longer a beginning
in fact
there was no beginning
but the dust
dear souls
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
As an artist, the most important thing is that you do what you are interested in. I am interested in such things as life and death, reincarnation, and whether there are entities in the soul. These topics are discussed most fundamentally in my works. This question is a topic that you can always brainstorm, and it has no answer. The question of religion always invites an open answer. You have no solution to the question of life and death, and no solution to the question of reincarnation, so you can keep thinking about this question. And the longer you live, the more anxious you will be about this problem. No one will find these two questions boring. It is a problem that you will definitely face, the question that you can't escape from and keep away from.
—— Tianzhuo Chen
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
Nothing repeats itself, nothing ever comes back, except coming itself, which is never the same — but, rather, the indefinitely altered return of the same. This is, indeed, chaotic as Chen’s realm of aesthetic consists in channeling an absent cosmos out of playful contempt for the events of the world (and therefore it becomes political), regardless of all of those socially constructed signifiers which are already half-dead even before the meaning arrives.
——oxi pëng，E҉n҉c҉h҉a҉n҉t҉m҉e҉n҉t҉ of Ӏìʍҍօ ҽղçհąղէҽժ: Corporeality, Consilience, Assemblage —— The “§þꢵlå†ïvê £åßµlå†ïðñ，2021
Courtesy the artist
Transcending the self and triggering frenzy are the incentives that seemingly motivate Tianzhuo Chen’s artwork. Like a master alchemist, he seeks to bring out elements that already exist within the reality of contemporary society. After their distillation (or purification), he molds and sublimates them into an authentically frenzied atmosphere. The all-seeing eye, Eric Cartman, the racist from “South Park”, and dwarfs that possess elements or symbols of alienation often appear within his works. Whether a wood-carved sculpture, performance prop or video backdrop, his use of bold and gaudy colors in addition to layers of music, both interactively stimulates the senses, and completes the sublimation of his artworks. Tianzhuo Chen’s strong artistic purpose allows him to more freely gather and utilize a diverse range of media. In addition to sculpture, video, installation and drawing, he synthesizes work by including forms of popular culture, such as clothing, music, parties and performance.
Courtesy of the artist
“Flesh is inherently weak, and the border between life and death is, as such, indistinct”
–Tianzhuo Chen
Courtesy the artist
About the artist：
Tianzhuo Chen was born in 1985, and he currently lives and works in Beijing, China. After graduating from Central Saint Martins in London, he received his master’s degree in fine art from the Chelsea College of Arts in London.
Chen skillfully works between the artistic disciplines of installation, performance, video, painting, and photography, but he also creates events that require the participation of viewers or other people, such as underground parties, theater performances, or more precisely constructed ritual sites, to realize their transformation into dreamworlds. He assimilates elements and symbols from religion (e.g., Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and shamanism), subcultures (e.g., cult followings, drag shows, and raves), popular culture (e.g., cartoons, hip hop, and electronic music), and dance (e.g., butoh and vogueing) into his work, in the hopes that the viewer or participant will transcend the surface state of the body and spirit through that ambience and achieve what the artist calls a “state of madness.”
Recent solo exhibitions include “Trance” (M Woods Museum, Beijing, 2019), “GHOST” (Kunsthalle Winterthur, Winterthur, 2017), “Ishvara” (Long March Space, Beijing, 2016), “Chen Tianzhuo” (chi K11 Art Museum, Shanghai, 2016), and “Tianzhuo Chen” (Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2015).
Courtesy of the artist, photography: Ren Xingxing
Tianzhuo Chen: The Dust
Tianzhuo Chen's latest three-channel video work The Dust commissioned by the Macalline Art Center presents a performance that situates farming tools and ceremonial objects as the primary protagonists, while humans remain noticeably absent. The artist’s lens shifts from the water-powered prayer wheels in Cuogao Village to the celestial burial ground at Damu Temple, telling a story from the beginning of life, evolution, and blooming desires to perishing bodies, through shots of farming and ceremonial relics.
The online viewing room will be launched from 30 March 18:00 to 12 April 18:00 (CST), 2021.
Courtesy of the artist
The video takes on a Sisyphean quality — the tools and relics of worship symbolize the hardships through which humans atone for original sin. A performance without the presence of human figures therefore has no social order. Romances, fights, and disasters never exist, and the only events that take place are those deriving from the original source of everything.
Courtesy of the artist and Macalline Art Center.
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
no generations
no future
no past
an endless geographic land of micro-meshing
limitless webs of merging
leaking
interweaving
coexistence of the multiples
aimless
careless
needless
thoughtless
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
This sudden situation in 2020 has broken everyone's inherent lifestyle. The life circle has been reduced and the timeline has been lengthened. At the same time, it has also thrown us into the question of how to face the future ecosystem. Tianzhuo Chen, who is accustomed to creating through performances, returned to Tibet again when he was isolated from the epidemic and when his artistic creation suddenly encountered a bottleneck, and decided to shoot a "performance" that was very different from the past.
"I came to Tibet this time to shoot new videos. I want to shoot a performance without humans or a ceremony site without human participation. It will have human traces but no human actual participation."
—— SUPERELLE × Tianzhuo Chen-World Stage
Courtesy the artist
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
trembling twilight sweeps away the remains
skies echoes skies
earth touches earth
on the naked land where grow the naked lives
the fable may only be written
when the beginning is no longer a beginning
in fact
there was no beginning
but the dust
dear souls
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
As an artist, the most important thing is that you do what you are interested in. I am interested in such things as life and death, reincarnation, and whether there are entities in the soul. These topics are discussed most fundamentally in my works. This question is a topic that you can always brainstorm, and it has no answer. The question of religion always invites an open answer. You have no solution to the question of life and death, and no solution to the question of reincarnation, so you can keep thinking about this question. And the longer you live, the more anxious you will be about this problem. No one will find these two questions boring. It is a problem that you will definitely face, the question that you can't escape from and keep away from.
—— Tianzhuo Chen
Courtesy of the artist
Nothing repeats itself, nothing ever comes back, except coming itself, which is never the same — but, rather, the indefinitely altered return of the same. This is, indeed, chaotic as Chen’s realm of aesthetic consists in channeling an absent cosmos out of playful contempt for the events of the world (and therefore it becomes political), regardless of all of those socially constructed signifiers which are already half-dead even before the meaning arrives.
——oxi pëng，E҉n҉c҉h҉a҉n҉t҉m҉e҉n҉t҉ of Ӏìʍҍօ ҽղçհąղէҽժ: Corporeality, Consilience, Assemblage —— The “§þꢵlå†ïvê £åßµlå†ïðñ，2021
Courtesy of the artist
Transcending the self and triggering frenzy are the incentives that seemingly motivate Tianzhuo Chen’s artwork. Like a master alchemist, he seeks to bring out elements that already exist within the reality of contemporary society. After their distillation (or purification), he molds and sublimates them into an authentically frenzied atmosphere. The all-seeing eye, Eric Cartman, the racist from “South Park”, and dwarfs that possess elements or symbols of alienation often appear within his works. Whether a wood-carved sculpture, performance prop or video backdrop, his use of bold and gaudy colors in addition to layers of music, both interactively stimulates the senses, and completes the sublimation of his artworks. Tianzhuo Chen’s strong artistic purpose allows him to more freely gather and utilize a diverse range of media. In addition to sculpture, video, installation and drawing, he synthesizes work by including forms of popular culture, such as clothing, music, parties and performance.
Courtesy of the artist
“Flesh is inherently weak, and the border between life and death is, as such, indistinct”
–Tianzhuo Chen
Courtesy of the artist, photography: Ren Xingxing
About the artist：
Tianzhuo Chen was born in 1985, and he currently lives and works in Beijing, China. After graduating from Central Saint Martins in London, he received his master’s degree in fine art from the Chelsea College of Arts in London.
Chen skillfully works between the artistic disciplines of installation, performance, video, painting, and photography, but he also creates events that require the participation of viewers or other people, such as underground parties, theater performances, or more precisely constructed ritual sites, to realize their transformation into dreamworlds. He assimilates elements and symbols from religion (e.g., Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and shamanism), subcultures (e.g., cult followings, drag shows, and raves), popular culture (e.g., cartoons, hip hop, and electronic music), and dance (e.g., butoh and vogueing) into his work, in the hopes that the viewer or participant will transcend the surface state of the body and spirit through that ambience and achieve what the artist calls a “state of madness.”
Recent solo exhibitions include “Trance” (M Woods Museum, Beijing, 2019), “GHOST” (Kunsthalle Winterthur, Winterthur, 2017), “Ishvara” (Long March Space, Beijing, 2016), “Chen Tianzhuo” (chi K11 Art Museum, Shanghai, 2016), and “Tianzhuo Chen” (Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2015).
