Pick Your Poison
First edition of Pick Your Poison by Chen Zhe (2023)
First impression
Medium format hardback in new condition
Published by Jiazazhi
About
The title of Pick Your Poison is inspired by Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: "While you live/Drink! — for, once dead, you never shall return." It means relentlessly exhausting life. Editing this collection of dialogues with writers, critics, scholars and designers, artist Chen Zhe re-examines her artistic experience from the last decade, frequently calibrated: between unconscious seeing and conscious blindness, between completed artworks and forthcoming projects, and between a roaming self and an unchanging self. "After all, the life of a creation needs to be judged by time, but the life of an artist is his/her own responsibility: a daily practice as natural as breathing, a career path leading to one challenge after another, or a sensuous expression of the most intimate emotions" — these constitute most of the artist's life.