Exit 4
Chen Wenbo
陈文波
Production date
2007
Object Detail
Media
oil on canvas
Measurements
200 x 150.5 cm
Notes
Chen Wenbo acknowledges the influence of Marcel Duchamp and the Dada movement, and this painting in some ways is a knowing allusion to Duchamp’s most notorious ‘ready-made’, the men’s urinal that he entered into an exhibition in 1917 with the title ‘Fountain’. Here the gleaming pink toilet with its raised seat shines like an advertisement for a cleaning product, with light bouncing off its shiny porcelain and plastic surfaces. Critic Qiu Zhijie described this halo-like light as elevating ‘ordinary daily objects onto the altar of materialism’. Exit No. 3 and Exit No. 4 were created to illustrate a book called ‘Surface Skin’ (Biaopi), a collaboration between Chen Wenbo and novelist Hu Fang.
Accession number
2007.019