CHEN Zhen was born in 1955 in Shanghai. He earned a BFA from the Shanghai School of Arts and Crafts (1973) and an MFA from the Shanghai Drama Institute (1978) before moving to Paris in 1986, where he studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Working primarily as a sculptor and installation artist, Chen participated in several historic exhibitions that mark the rise of global contemporary art. Chen lived in Paris—a cosmopolitan city that remained his home until an untimely death in 2000—and much of his practice was linked to his experience living among multiple cultures and notions of historical time, a state he called “transexperience.”

Drawing on postmodern theory, Chen challenged the dominance of modern Western values, especially consumerism, proffering a humanist “cure” through the incorporation of Daoist and Buddhist references into his allegorical and often participatory constructions. In Jue Chang—Fifty Strokes to Each (1998), Chen used chairs and beds from different parts of the world to create an immense makeshift drum that referenced the bianzhong, an ancient Chinese percussion instrument. A group of Tibetan monks were invited to chant prayers for peace, and then the public beat on the drums. Created during moments of tension in the Middle East and the war in Kosovo, this collective act of spiritual release was conceived as a call for world peace. Jue Chang was shown at the Venice Biennale, curated by one of Chen’s champions, Harald Szeemann, in the following year.