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POMERANZ COLLECTION

MADEIN

Spread C-006
2009
Textiles, sponges, copper, tin, wood, Plexiglas
114 x 196 x 45 cm
Inv. Nr. 88

MadeIn is a company established in the year 2009 in Shanghai by Xu Zhen. The firm expands its diversity to the creation, support, spread and curating of art 

Xu Zhen, active in Shanghai since the end of the nineties, has been working since June 2009 under the company name MadeIn Inc. His work, including photography, video, performance and installation, conveys, with both theatrical and humoristic sense, multi-layered meanings centred on social, public and political processes in Chinese and global contexts. He often creates situations that blur the line between fact and fiction, as for the name MadeIn. This organization is presented as a collective art agency, which produces artworks and exhibitions meant to offer a diversified perspective of contemporary Chinese art. All its realizations are eventually created by one individual, the artist himself, who intends to merge his own identity with a brand name, the one that is stamped on any Chinese product all around the world.

Spread is a series of various material and fabric installations started in 2009. These works borrow the methods of satirical cartoons by deliberately exaggerating forms and using controversial imagery such as in Spread C-006, which features an army jacket covered with an impressive numbers of medals. The insignias look like fashion badges that usually label their owners and humorously juxtapose paradoxes through generic mentions such as “Vote for war in Irak” and “Old hippy”.