ShanghART at 796 Huaihai Lu is pleased to present a special project curated and conceptualized by MadeIn, a newly founded art collaborative initiated by Xu Zhen. On view will be an exquisite selection of works in a wide variety of media – installation, drawing, painting, and collage – representing a compellingly diversified perspective of contemporary Chinese art. The works take on history, politics, and the everyday; approaches informed as much by reality as by fiction.

Following MadeIn’s successful debut in Art Basel Miami Beach 09, the art agency now extends its curatorial practice by staging a new series of mixed-media installations titled Spread (2009). Consisting of various materials and fabrics, these tactile works indicate a playful turn from painting in favor of the three-dimensional object. Here, the structures are fluid;  sometimes the contour of the depictions deliberately breaks up, morphing into sculpture in thick textures. The second series of works in the exhibtion "Metal Language"  (2009) that consist of ‘silver’ and ‘gold’ chains formed into speech bubbles which contain slogan-like one-liners. By appropriating and borrowing messages and rhetorical devices of mass media, public service announcements, and news reports these works prompt a critical approach to information.