BRUNO ZHU | ARE YOU OK??!? | 2022
Bruno Zhu:
Are you ok??!?
2022
Cotton, quartz clock movements, batteries, foam, Diptych (2/2)
Dimensions variable
Price on demand
Mechanisms of desire, identity, and ideology inform the work of Bruno Zhu. Influenced by fashion design, publishing and scenography, Zhu works in the space of fiction to rewrite agency, authors- hip, consumption and power. His object-led installations implicate the audience as cultural agents with the power to produce their own meanings.
‘Are you ok?’ is an ongoing series of enlarged wristwatches that speak in sartorial codes. These human-sized replicas of the artist’s mother’s Patek Philippe watch made in satin, cotton and poly- ester could be mistaken for fashionable people on the go. But they remain loyal to their original time-based role. The diptych ‘Are you ok??!?’ (2022) creates an absolute temporal horizon – while one watch time runs backwards the other moves forward, producing a flashback and a flash-for- ward event. Each watch is treated as an evening gown, embodying an aristocratic attitude aligned to its original Patek Philippe referent, a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer founded
in 1839 in Geneva.
„For the past five years I have been invested in ways to bend time. This has taken the form of dating artworks according to starting points aside from their artistic conception. Sometimes the date signals a component acquired in 2009, or a found photograph from 1998. I want these retro- spective insertions into my biography to challenge our understanding of creative labour. I don’t see a work of art as a stable form, but rather an evolving body that is vulnerable to growth spurts. ‘Are you ok?’ is therefore both a rhetorical utterance made by a clock going backwards, and a sincere expression of concern to whoever is looking at it.“
Bruno Zhu is a Portugese artist living in Portugal and The Netherlands.
Selected exhibitions include: Bruno Zhu, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2024), Zürich Biennale, Kunsthalle Zürich (2023), Everybody is Crazy, What Pipeline, Detroit (2023); O Quilombismo, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2023); Chrysalis: The Butterfly Dream, Centre d’Art Contempo- rain Genève, Geneva (2023); I am not afraid, Cordova, Barcelona (2022); Myth Makers: Spectro- synthesis III, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2022); Domestic Drama, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, Graz (2021); and Shhhhhhh, UKS (Unge Kunstneres Samfund), Oslo (2020). Bruno Zhu is a member of A Maior, a curatorial program set in a home furnishings and clothing store in Viseu, Portugal.
Bruno Zhu:
Are you ok??!?
2022
Cotton, quartz clock movements, batteries, foam, Diptych (2/2)
Dimensions variable
Price on demand
Mechanisms of desire, identity, and ideology inform the work of Bruno Zhu. Influenced by fashion design, publishing and scenography, Zhu works in the space of fiction to rewrite agency, authors- hip, consumption and power. His object-led installations implicate the audience as cultural agents with the power to produce their own meanings.
‘Are you ok?’ is an ongoing series of enlarged wristwatches that speak in sartorial codes. These human-sized replicas of the artist’s mother’s Patek Philippe watch made in satin, cotton and poly- ester could be mistaken for fashionable people on the go. But they remain loyal to their original time-based role. The diptych ‘Are you ok??!?’ (2022) creates an absolute temporal horizon – while one watch time runs backwards the other moves forward, producing a flashback and a flash-for- ward event. Each watch is treated as an evening gown, embodying an aristocratic attitude aligned to its original Patek Philippe referent, a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer founded
in 1839 in Geneva.
„For the past five years I have been invested in ways to bend time. This has taken the form of dating artworks according to starting points aside from their artistic conception. Sometimes the date signals a component acquired in 2009, or a found photograph from 1998. I want these retro- spective insertions into my biography to challenge our understanding of creative labour. I don’t see a work of art as a stable form, but rather an evolving body that is vulnerable to growth spurts. ‘Are you ok?’ is therefore both a rhetorical utterance made by a clock going backwards, and a sincere expression of concern to whoever is looking at it.“
Bruno Zhu is a Portugese artist living in Portugal and The Netherlands.
Selected exhibitions include: Bruno Zhu, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2024), Zürich Biennale, Kunsthalle Zürich (2023), Everybody is Crazy, What Pipeline, Detroit (2023); O Quilombismo, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2023); Chrysalis: The Butterfly Dream, Centre d’Art Contempo- rain Genève, Geneva (2023); I am not afraid, Cordova, Barcelona (2022); Myth Makers: Spectro- synthesis III, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2022); Domestic Drama, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, Graz (2021); and Shhhhhhh, UKS (Unge Kunstneres Samfund), Oslo (2020). Bruno Zhu is a member of A Maior, a curatorial program set in a home furnishings and clothing store in Viseu, Portugal.
Bruno Zhu:
Are you ok??!?
2022
Cotton, quartz clock movements, batteries, foam, Diptych (2/2)
Dimensions variable
Price on demand
Mechanisms of desire, identity, and ideology inform the work of Bruno Zhu. Influenced by fashion design, publishing and scenography, Zhu works in the space of fiction to rewrite agency, authors- hip, consumption and power. His object-led installations implicate the audience as cultural agents with the power to produce their own meanings.
‘Are you ok?’ is an ongoing series of enlarged wristwatches that speak in sartorial codes. These human-sized replicas of the artist’s mother’s Patek Philippe watch made in satin, cotton and poly- ester could be mistaken for fashionable people on the go. But they remain loyal to their original time-based role. The diptych ‘Are you ok??!?’ (2022) creates an absolute temporal horizon – while one watch time runs backwards the other moves forward, producing a flashback and a flash-for- ward event. Each watch is treated as an evening gown, embodying an aristocratic attitude aligned to its original Patek Philippe referent, a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer founded
in 1839 in Geneva.
„For the past five years I have been invested in ways to bend time. This has taken the form of dating artworks according to starting points aside from their artistic conception. Sometimes the date signals a component acquired in 2009, or a found photograph from 1998. I want these retro- spective insertions into my biography to challenge our understanding of creative labour. I don’t see a work of art as a stable form, but rather an evolving body that is vulnerable to growth spurts. ‘Are you ok?’ is therefore both a rhetorical utterance made by a clock going backwards, and a sincere expression of concern to whoever is looking at it.“
Bruno Zhu is a Portugese artist living in Portugal and The Netherlands.
Selected exhibitions include: Bruno Zhu, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2024), Zürich Biennale, Kunsthalle Zürich (2023), Everybody is Crazy, What Pipeline, Detroit (2023); O Quilombismo, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2023); Chrysalis: The Butterfly Dream, Centre d’Art Contempo- rain Genève, Geneva (2023); I am not afraid, Cordova, Barcelona (2022); Myth Makers: Spectro- synthesis III, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2022); Domestic Drama, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, Graz (2021); and Shhhhhhh, UKS (Unge Kunstneres Samfund), Oslo (2020). Bruno Zhu is a member of A Maior, a curatorial program set in a home furnishings and clothing store in Viseu, Portugal.
