Chen and big ants occupy today's art museum and respect individual life with dignity.

Using stainless steel as ants can be said to be a contemporary artistic symbol of artist Chen. In 2003, his first attempt was an instant hit. He took his "ant" to several international and domestic exhibitions. 201May 23rd, Chen came to Today Art Museum with his "ant" and held his solo exhibition "Decent Place". This exhibition, planned by Xu Gang, shows two giant new works of the ancient stage works "Decent Land" and "Ant Series", which reflect the culture of southern Fujian, and especially shows Fujian land gods and some pictures and photos. This is a staged combing and systematic display of artist Chen's artistic creation in recent years. Dean of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, curator of Today Art Group, curator of Beijing Minsheng Art Museum Pei Jinmei, former mayor of Zhangzhou, calligrapher He Jinlong and many other guests attended the opening ceremony of the exhibition.

Xu Gang, the curator, introduced the exhibition "honorably" and discussed the relationship between art and reality from the perspective of Minnan folk drama and local gods. "Decent" is a folk expression of drama, because all the stories on the stage are stories of talented people and beautiful women, all of which are beautiful plots. Because life is hard at ordinary times, you should be decent on the stage. Corresponding to Chen's theme of "ant tribe", that is, starting from the dignity of artistic expression, I look forward to the possibility that every ant tribe can realize its dignity in reality.

In this exhibition, the exhibition hall of Today Art Museum is surrounded by "walking ants". A large number of swarms of ants reflect the collectivity of ants. These swarms of ants also represent the contemporary people in China and express the artist's understanding of China's national character. Stainless steel ants covered with broken walls also express the influence of urbanization on China people in an extreme artistic way. At the same time, Chen also surreally enlarged and even personified an ant, making it look like a well-dressed person, that is, deified the ant. These ants are the land gods built by Chen Zaifu. They can be door gods, accountants or princes. They are full of secular flavor, but they are awe-inspiring because of their huge size and shiny appearance. The theme of this exhibition "honorably" conveys the significance of respecting individual life. Therefore, in the view of curator Xu Gang, Chen is good at replacing traditional resources with contemporary media and instilling multiple symbolic meanings into such a humble and great creature as ants.

Chen's works can be said to be "empirical aesthetics". Based on his own experience and that of contemporary people in China, he transformed the shape of ants and the relationship between ants and their surroundings. Whether The Ant Colony is an individual, a reflection of Chen's personality, a part of a group or a representative of contemporary China people, Chen Dou strongly expressed his "decent" will to respect individuals, traditions and life.