After three exhibitions at the gallery in Beijing, Cheng Ran is being introduced to a Western audience with his first solo presentation at Galerie Urs Meile in Lucerne. In his recently published debut novel, Circadian Rhythm (2013, paperback, English and Chinese version, 256 pages, 18.4 x 13 cm), the artist again takes up motifs and quotes from his earlier works; thus, the novel can be read as a subtext for this exhibition. The first part of the exhibition focuses on Circadian Rhythm and is conceived as a kind of “reading room”, wherein installations frame a reading table like props or unfinished chapters of the story. In the second room a selection of Cheng Ran’s video works is shown, among them the video work whose titel is also the title of this exhibition: Existence Without Air, Food, or Water.

-Galerie Urs Meile

Image: © Cheng Ran