Both works in exhibition today come from the series entitled Placebo by ZHOU Tiehai. Placebo is a substitute in medicine, which merely functions to stimulate and help patients with establishment of confidence in treatment effect. Despite continuous display of unreality to keep its illogical imagination and pressure, Placebo as artistic practice by ZHOU includes newly created images. In this very series, a camel is adopted as his new idol to represent the sense of superiority held by some middle class last century. Wearing sun glasses, it replaces figures in classical paintings and the satire it thus produces alludes to changes that accompany the development of the society.
ZHOU Tiehai has exhibited extensively at acclaimed institutions across the world, such as Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Deichtorhallen (Hamburg), Kunsthal (Rotterdam), Shanghai Art Museum, Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin) and Mori Art Museum (Tokyo). Additionally, he participated in the 48th Venice Biennale, 5th Shanghai Biennale and 4th Gwangju Biennale.