Lantian Xie
Machine Chicken Real Tree Culture
February 4 – March 29, 2025
Chicken grease, petrol pump, mufflers grumble, fluorescent light sliding across brushed steel, ceramic tiles. Hot juice oozing down hot dog tubes. Axe deodorant, brakes squeezing into screeches, aluminum wind whistling over horizon. 200 supply, low on mats. Plastic changes hands, mouths sink into spherified meat. Window rolls down, gears pulling, particles in tow. Car horns flood in, blaring syncopation against a melody older than stars: petrol station, McDonald’s, mosque. Petrol station, KFC, mosque. A party of worms chomping at rinds.
Gas refinery flare on chimney stack, smoldering revolt against the sun, smoldering past chill, tin, pitch of night—an infinite burp whose aroma rings with aftertaste of discipline, subject-identification, Euclidian logics. All of it pulverized, sweat down until viscoelastic. Crisp, crunch, still damp between the inches from deep fry. Steam, salt, then tender sinews underneath for stomachs to warm and mellow their keep, to tease stains off polythene, to mold them into familiar shapes, to reveal relations with plankton ancestors whose depths eclipse time.
119 kilometers per hour, eyes closed, faith walk. Travelator rumbling undertow. Four-wheel suitcase gliding over marble, wrist resting featherlike on handle.
Bumblebee crawling into air conditioner vent. Coolant metal rainfall from screaming split units piled high overhead—AC bebop.
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About the artist
Lantian Xie makes images, objects, things, things that happen, formulations, jumps, swerves, moves, exhibitions, books, clothes, working groups, jazz bands, motorcycles, and parties.
Previous appearances at 60th & 57th Venice Biennales; 11th Shanghai Biennial; 3rd Kochi-Muziris Biennial; 14th Sharjah Biennial; 7th Yokohama Triennale.