Chen Zhen

Chen Zhen ( Chinese  陈 箴 , Pinyin Chén Zhēn ; born October 4, 1955 in Shanghai , People's Republic of China , † December 13, 2000 in Paris , France ) was a French sculptor , installation artist and university lecturer .

Life

Chen Zhen was the son of two doctors and grew up in Shanghai's former French concession during the Cultural Revolution . He studied at the Shanghai Arts College of Shanghai University and later at the Shanghai Drama Institute , now the Shanghai Theater Academy . There he took a specialty in stage design. In 1982 he became a professor there. In the same year he was diagnosed with autoimmune hemolytic anemia and indicated that he would survive five years.

After a forced stay in Tibet in 1983, Chen Zhen went to France in 1986 to study at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris . He made further studies at the Paris Institut des Hautes Études en Arts Plastiques (IHEAP). Among other things, he earned his living as a portrait artist on the streets of Paris.

Chen Zhen was a professor at IHEAP from 1993 to 1995 and then went to the École nationale supérieure d'art de Nancy in Lorraine until 1999 . During these years he took French citizenship . He was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris after his death from cancer . His wife Xu Min made sure that the fountain sculpture La Danse de la fontaine émergante he planned was completed according to his plans. The fountain was inaugurated in 2008 in its Parisian neighborhood , the 13th arrondissement .

Personal

Chen Zhen's parents live and work as well-known doctors and professors in Shanghai. His brother, Chen Zhu, is a hematologist and was Minister of Health of the People's Republic and one of the vice-chairs of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in Beijing . Chen Zhen and his wife Xu Min have a son.

Exhibitions

• Institute of Contemporary Art , Boston , Massachusetts , USA.
• MoMA PS1 , New York City, USA.
• 2006: Shanghai Art Museum .
• 2oo7: Chen Zhen: 1991–2000 unrealized / The body of the landscape , Kunsthalle Wien , then in the MART Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto , Rovereto , Italy. Catalog.
• 2015: Rockbund Art Museum , Shanghai.

literature

• Gerald Matt (Ed.): Chen Zhen: 1991–2000 unrealized , 4 issues in de / zh / fr / en. Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Nuremberg 2007, ISBN 978-3-939738-29-9 (de.)

Web links

• Association des Amis de Chen Zhen (fr.)

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Chen is the family name here, Zhen is the first name.