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M+, Hong Kong, © Estate of Chen Zhen/ADAGP
Chen Zhen 陳箴
Exciting Delivery 令人興奮的分娩
1999
Supported by three bicycle wheels, Exciting Delivery appears at first glance to be a kind of wheelchair weighed down by a huge black chrysalis with a tail extending to the ground. The body is formed from bicycle inner tubes woven together, and closer inspection reveals tiny black toy cars, which seem as if they are being spawned from the larger mass. Exciting Delivery is one of several of Chen Zhen’s works that use bicycle parts to comment on changes in Chinese society arising from industrialisation and increasing reliance on cars. Although Chen relocated from China to France in 1986 and lived there until his death in 2000, the rapid transformation of his country of birth remained an abiding concern for him. The cocoon shape of Exciting Delivery has strong associations with birth and nature, but it is made from manufactured products. This paradoxical union is characteristic of Chen’s inquiry into ‘transexperience’, or a dynamic zone of friction and energy born out of disparate and conflicting elements, which led him to work with a variety of objects and materials, to bring together contradictory experiences.
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