Inside the White Cube

Established in 2009, MadeIn Company is an arIsts’ This raises quesIons of authenIcity and the way art is collecIve founded by Shanghai-based arIst, Xu Zhen (b. experienced today through ‘advanced media’, materialism 1977). Exploring noIons of idenIty, authorship, ethics and the art market. Each piece is accompanied by a label and commerce, MadeIn’s pracIce embraces a wide range with a Itle, which are quotes from various philosophical of formal and conceptual strategies. In the ‘True Image’ or cultural sources, alongside the ‘original’ artwork’s series (2010-12), five sculptures were created by the medium and size, creaIng a further conceptual deviance. collecIve, photographed and then destroyed following Suspended in the gallery space, ‘Play – 4’ (2012), features their documentaIon. The only record of the ‘original’ a naked figure, wearing ceremonial headdress, hung from artworks are in this series of large-scale photographs, and the ceiling by a form of tradiIonal Japanese ‘Kinbaku’ or in doing so, the photographic representaIon subverts the bondage apparatus. A sculptural montage of different ‘aura’ and physicality of the ‘original’ piece (as discussed ethniciIes, including Asian and African, ‘Play – 4’ by the cultural criIc Walter Benjamin in his 1936 essay, examines the problemaIcs and contenIous nature of ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical ReproducIon’.) cultural poliIcs.