Video: Chen Zhe, Artist Talk
On Thursday, January 23 at 7pm, Plug In ICA hosted an artist talk by Beijing-based artist, Chen Zhe, on the occasion of the Chen’s exhibition opening at Plug In. The conversation highlighted Chen’s, Towards Evenings: 891 Dusks, an Encyclopedia of Psychological Experiences, which was the first solo show in Canada by Chen, and was on view from January 24 to March 22, 2020.
Chen’s Towards Evenings: 891 Dusks, an Encyclopaedia of Psychological Experiences is an expansive, multidisciplinary series that examined the contradictory tensions inherent in this light of near night. Chen’s exploration into the complex and transient experiences of dusk stems from her previous research and artwork in Bees & the Bearable, where the invisible, unspoken, most private and intimate formations of selfhood and pain are given form, space, and language. In Towards Evenings, Chen’s persistent desire to create systems of knowledge for the inarticulable moments of unease and disturbances, as they come up in the body’s experience of time and its impact on our emotional landscape, journeys into the realm of disquiet. Chen’s talk delved into the process and impact such intense and rigorous research has on the artist and her practice and engaged with the durational affects of dusk, and how they manifest in writing and making.
Chen Zhe (b.1989, Beijing) received her BFA in Photography and Imaging from Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. Her works have been recently featured in exhibitions at Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden, Germany (2019); The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT9), Brisbane, Australia (2018); Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2018); Para Site Art Space, Hong Kong (2018); OCAT Museum Xi’an, Xi’an (solo, 2018); CAFA Art Museum, Beijing (2017); The 11th Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai (2016); Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2016); Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2016); The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2013); and Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing (2011). Chen is the recipient of the Foam Talent (2018), Xitek New Talent Award (2015), Lianzhou Festival Photographer of the Year Award (2012), Three Shadows Award (2011) and the Inge Morath Award from the Magnum Foundation (2011). She is also subject of TV documentary films Chinese Viewfinder produced by ARTE, France (2013) and China Through the Lens of Youth produced by NHK, Japan (2014). Her latest publication Bees & The Bearable was awarded the Best Photobook of the Year by Kassel Fotobookfestival in 2016.
Associated Programming
Solo Exhibition | NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism by Hyphen-Labs | January 24 – March 22, 2020