Audio Guide Stop #9: Xu Zhen®
Eternity—Male Figure, Statue of Venus Genetrix exemplifies the provocative aesthetics explored by the Chinese artist Xu Zhen®. Commissioned for the Triennial, this work consists of three nearly identical sculptures—the two you see here in the Asia Society Museum galleries and one installed on the Park Avenue median just outside the main entrance to Asia Society. The sculptures reproduce an eleventh-century Cambodian male figure from the Asia Society Museum Collection and a figure of Venus Genetrix from the Getty Museum’s collection. By conjoining the replicas of these iconic statues, Zhen addresses the Eurocentric hierarchies within the canon of art history and the complex issues surrounding the collecting practices of non-western art in the United States.