Placebo medicine is not a medicine for any illness at all. It only works in giving people psychological comfort.

The works have the following distinctive characteristics. First, the Western culture that represents the mainstream of mankind’s civilized progress has taken a drug therapy approach to the living conditions of humanity. This is expressed in Chinese as zhibiao bu zhiben: it treats the symptoms, not the cause. Ultimately, it can only serve as self-comfort, or narcissism. Second, the works themselves are aiming to interpret Western standards. Mainstream culture at the same time contains non-mainstream cultures that consider themselves unable to get rid of the standard picture, just like someone who is awakened in the middle of a dream. They cannot help becoming sideshows to the big global culture. Third, this is a phenomenon of landmark significance in the cultural exchange of East and West. On the one hand, it is full of respect for the achievements of Western culture, and seeks to use Western medicine to solve Eastern illnesses. On the other hand, it well knows that those medicines have side effects and cannot radically cure diseases. However when the disease is critical, one turns to doctors at random. This is where the artist’s helplessness and pain are.

(Zhou Tiehai, Explanation of Placebo and of Tonic, 2006[Selected])