Chen Tianzhuo: PICNIC PARADISE BITCH

Chen Tianzhuo latest, multi-screen, video works presented here are elements that inform the artist’s long-format, staged opera epic ADAHA, which will be released next year. In PICNIC, a work made in collaboration with dancer Beio, a strange, possessed spirit that comes alive through a psychedelic hallucination, contorts against an alter of neon lights. PARADI$E BITCH shows a Canton style rap battle between two tattooed midgets who represent the good and bad angels of one’s inner conscious. By conflating the iconography of today’s underground culture with Japanese post-war Butoh dancing and tribal religion Chen’s work celebrates the eternal human desire for a mythology of transcendence while questioning faith’s continual reliance upon the image.

Special thanks to Xu Chenxu and iWeekly for their support.