For his first solo exhibition in New York, Chen Xiaoyun presents a new body of work consisting of three videos and four large-scale photographs. Currently living and working in Hangzhou, China, Chen stages scenes from everyday life that are at once familiar yet bizarre, oftentimes using allegory to isolate fragments of our individual and communal experiences. As a result, the individuals appear to be suspended in time and space—somewhere between an existential moment and a completely mundane act.

In Love You, Big Boss, an orchestra made up of a disparate group performs in an empty theater. Each musician attempts a clumsy recital of the American anthem to the beat of his/her own drum and a deep sense of disconnection hovers over them. While the Big Boss refers to the powers that be—more specifically, America as a domineering world influence—the musicians symbolize a melting pot, exposing the chaos that results from economic, ideological, and religious disassociations.

Similarly, in the video I Am King, Chen turns to the exploitative nature of sex as a provocative metaphor for how some of the most powerful figures in history—recited as a litany of names—have manipulated and abused their citizens. Fly With You, a video of a man powerfully swinging various objects that change before our eyes, is also charged with angst and frustration. Reminiscent of surrealism’s exploration of psychological truths by stripping objects of their customary significance, Chen considers how these possessions are indicative of a more dismal social condition.

Influenced by the social and political history of China, Chen’s photographs document activities by individuals in which the futility of utopian idealism is rendered palpable. Revolution’s Romanticism shows a man draped in a mound of carpet with only his forearm jutting out from the top, while the Dusk of Mr. Chen finds someone partially buried by a mound of debris. Surrendered to Everything’s Everythings depicts a gesture of total submission with a man struggling to erect a phalanx of symbolic white flags. A midget in a veritable tug of war with an adversary hidden in a cave forms the bizarre mise-en-scène of the aptly titled Fortune of the Empire.