Chen Xi

1983--
Beijing

We could try to understand Chen Xis works as being composed of two layers. The upper layers are, without exceptions, nets, while the lower layers are the world. Some of his descriptions of the world could be a blurry mass of color, or a landscape, or a suicidal event, or even the boxing art of the Transformer. Sometimes, little bits of unidentified items or fragments of an image floated randomly in his world. This world could be real, or virtual. Theres nothing wrong with such a free world. The real problem, however, lies in the net. No world, nothing, can break away from Chen Xis net.

The net is what stands between Chen Xi and the world. Like him, we are all trapped in the net, or that we all imagine that the world is trapped in a net, or we all look at the world through such a net. The net does not look very solid, its shape distorted constantly by a gentle breeze. However, it is ubiquitous and has never shown the smallest opening. Behind the net there are still hundreds and hundreds of nets. The net has become a nightmare. Sometimes this nightmare is made up of words. Words can play an even bigger role in filtering the world for us, to make it more monotonous. No matter through what kind of net w...