2020
Anchor
Ce Jian & Yuzheng Cheng
2019-20
designed by On Paper Studio, printed in Beijing
folded booklet format: 248.5 x 347 mm, poster format: 694 x 994 mm
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The Anchor project was an experiment conducted in collaboration with 20 international authors, curators, and art historians. Each participant was assigned an artist who was completely unknown except for a brief CV and a digital artwork titled Anchor, and tasked with writing an interpretive text or comment based solely on this information.
After the contributors wrote their pieces, it was revealed to them that all 10 male and 10 female artists, coming from various nationalities and backgrounds, were fictitious identities. The digital collage Anchor, attached to each CV, was specifically created for this project. Its motif was derived from the logo of Ankerklause, a pub in Berlin’s multicultural Kreuzberg area, symbolizing themes of migration, settlement, and cultural roots.
The fictional nature of the project aimed to provoke questions about how foreign artist identities are perceived by an insider audience when presented as unknown figures, often operating outside the established art scene. How does the content of an artist’s CV influence the reception and interpretation of their work? What criteria define an acceptable artist CV in today’s discourse on outsiders, minorities, and diversity within a globalized art world? How do preconceived notions about cultural or social backgrounds shape perceptions of artistic “exoticism,” irrespective of the actual artwork?
The vibrant, eclectic digital collage with its pop post-internet aesthetic underscores the predominance of digital image viewing in contemporary art consumption. Simultaneously, it raises inquiries into whether digital media homogenize cultural distinctions through the rapid dissemination of popular forms and tastes.
Ce Jian & Yuzheng Cheng
