Chen Xiaoyun was born in Hubei Province, China, in 1971, and currently lives and works in Beijing. Since his participation in the group exhibition Art for Sale in Shanghai (1999), he has developed his contemporary art practice, focusing on photography and video, and is one of China’s most important experimental artists of the past decade. He grapples with the country’s tumultuous recent history and breakneck modernization, staging quotidian scenes that contain an element of strangeness, resulting in images that straddle the line between the mundane and the existential. His works usually begin with a caption, dialogue, or motion that he then manipulates by overlapping, refining, and abstracting images, revealing our known world to be crazier and more absurd than one might expect.
Chen’s recent solo exhibitions have taken place at A4 Contemporary Arts Center, Chengdu, China (2013), ShanghART Beijing (2013, 2012, and 2010), ShanghART H-Space, Shanghai (2009), Project Gallery, New York (2008), and MC, Los Angeles (2007). He has participated in various international art exhibitions and festivals, including at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2012), the Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2011), Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2009), the Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2008), the Havana Biennial (2008), the Busan Biennale, South Korea (2006), the Torino Triennial, Italy (2005), the Yokohama International Triennale of Contemporary Art, Japan (2005), and the Shanghai Biennale (2004). Chen received the New Photography of the Year Prize by Lianzhou Foto 2012.
