CM: Doesn’t it help to produce great “creativity” by producing great art? And what does “creativity” mean anyway? Are you society’s anthropologist or psychoanalyst?
XZ: The concept of “great art” today is very doubtful, because we deeply feel that the situation we are facing now is something like “no matter how much we do, it is never enough.” New desires, requests and fields of action are unceasingly produced and are always harsh, unsatisfied.
Creativity refers to the production of new thought, and the ability to discover and create.
CM: This brings us back to “creating creativity” and would appear to reference Marshall McLuhan’s oft misunderstood quote “The medium is the message,” whereby the message is structurally and materially affected by the form it takes. In the MadeIn cosmos, though, there is no final outcome or message, just unceasing mediation – a “stream of form.”
XZ: Like a war, the more you fight, the messier it gets. There are more and more commitments, more and more leads, but at a certain point, you can randomly take something in this “war” that would explain some questions.
CM: Could you put this in the context of your often-controversial wall-works? How have they developed their “media” since 2009’s “Seeing One’s Own Eyes” exhibition to their most recent iterations?
XZ: From the misunderstanding in the “Middle Eastern Contemporary Art” show to the exploration in the “Spread” series, then to the “beliefs-collage” in “Physique of Consciousness”, and this time’s “Action of Consciousness” emphasizing the idea of being “in action,” all these works stimulate, complete each other, and are continuously being developed.
Detail of “Play — 2,” silicon, iron, cotton filling, hemp cordage, fur, feathers, shells. “玩 – 2,” 硅胶、钢铁、丝绵填充、麻绳、皮草、羽毛、贝壳等装饰品, 160 x 60 x 80 cm, 2011 （局部）。
CM: What do you mean by the “misunderstanding” in the MECA show?
XZ: The misunderstanding in observation is a certain supply-demand relation caused by curiosity.
CM: What do you mean by “curiosity”? After all, what happens when, for instance, such “misunderstanding” threatens the process itself?
XZ: Observing curiosity is one of the materials for creating this work. (1) Our work is to adjust this kind of misunderstanding.
CM: Then is this “observation misunderstanding” a deliberate effect of the scenarios constructed by MadeIn? For instance, how would MadeIn position this in comparison with, for instance, the strategies of Xu Zhen’s now infamous “The Starving of Sudan”?
XZ: “Observation misunderstanding” is only a working starting point and a reason, though it was undoubtedly developed from Xu Zhen’s working methods. After all, Xu Zhen is the director of the company.
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CM: Various Western observers misinterpreted “The Starving of Sudan,” failing to see its installation as a whole and over-identifying with their own historical context. (2) MadeIn’s new series, “Play,” involves sculptural montages of people of various ethnicities engaged in traditional Japanese forms of bondage. This looks likely to provoke a similar reaction to the “Sudan” work. One could say that people are most blind when they are looking but doesn’t provocation have to be responsible for its own moral ambiguity, the very thing that makes it both interesting and dangerous?
XZ: Well said.
“Divinity-Spouse,” polyurethane foam, sensual low temperature wax. “神-妻子,” 聚氨脂发泡海绵、情趣低温蜡, 105 x 125 x 285 cm, 2011。
