Chen Zhou holds a knife to his wrist but doesn’t press down. This event early in his new film seems to express the artist’s present state more precisely than anything else—“I want to, but I can’t.” In Chen’s previous work Spanking the Maid, the same “inability” can be found, only on this occasion, the identity…

For readers unable to visit this exhibition in person: The perspective in the photograph to the left appears even stranger in real life. Ignore the stove, clay models, and flames and there is another perspective in a male figure, its body pierced several times with knives, looming gargantuan amongst “mountains.” Gazing beyond him to the…