Soft Cover, German / English, Glue Binding, 104 Pages, 2024, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König
Zhou Siwei
This publication is released on the occasion of Zhou Siwei’s exhibition I Sold What I Grow at the Vienna Secession, June 21–September 8, 2024. It includes an in-depth essay by the Beijing-based curator and arts writer Fiona He as well as an interview between the artist and Damian Lentini that probes the manifold influences that have informed his painting practice across the years.
Furthermore, as an artistic intervention, Zhou has included a limited-edition sticker that depicts a half-eaten apple—which bears an uncanny resemblance to the logo of a certain mega corporation—alongside the characters 想你 (“thinking of you”) carved into its flesh. Through the almost arbitrary action of biting and carving into the fruit, Zhou Siwei wishes to re-inscribe the apple with a sense of both the haptic and the personal-subjective—always “thinking of you.”