Zhang Huan

Zhang Huan (; born 1965) is a Chinese artist based in Shanghai and New York City. He began his career as a painter and then transitioned to performance art before making a comeback to painting. He is primarily known for his performance work, but also makes photographs and sculpture.

Early life and education Zhang was born in Anyang, Henan Province and named Dong Ming as a tribute to Chairman Mao. At the age of one, he was sent to live in rural Tangyin County for eight years with his grandmother. located on the margins of the city. The group of friends from art school pioneered this particular brand of performance in China and Zhang was often reprimanded by officials for the perceived inappropriateness of his actions.

Zhang's performance art always involves his body in one way or another, usually naked, occasionally involving masochistic actions. For example, for 12 Square Meters (1994), the accompanying photography exhibit showed him as "a naked man, his head half-shaved, sitting in a prison-like space. His skin was wet and covered with flies, having been smeared with honey and fishy liquid. His face looked blank but tough, as if he were trying to meditate his way through pain."

In a piece titled To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain (1995), he and nine other artists climbed a mountain near Beijing, stripped and lay down on top of one another to create a second, mini-peak. In another group performance called To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond (1997), he asked 40 migrant laborers to stand in a pond so that their physical presence would raise the water level. and My America (Hard to Acclimatize) (1999).

Sculpture

Zhang returned to China in 2006 and took up sculpture after converting to Buddhism. for example, consists of a massive head made of incense ash and steel. It fuses the artist's image with the lengthened earlobes representing happiness and good fortune in the Buddhist religion.

He continued to explore Buddhism with the sculpture Sydney Buddha (2015), an exhibition in which two Buddha sculptures were positioned facing each other: "One, a headless metal statue. The other, a crumbling sculpture made from over 20 tonnes of incense ash, which was collected from Buddhist temples in Shanghai and across China's Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces."

Of Sydney Buddha, the artist said: "The piece conveys the collective memory, soul, thoughts and prayers, and collapse of mankind. It implies a collective ineffectiveness, arising from taking action when none should be taken, upsetting the natural order of things."

Angel (1993) Angel, one of Zhang Huan's first performance art pieces, dates back to 1993 at the National Art Gallery located in Beijing, China. Zhang placed a giant white canvas on the floor of the exhibition space, then stepped out of the exhibition area and had a jar of red liquid (supposed to represent blood) and mangled doll parts poured over him. Afterwards, Zhang picked up the doll pieces and walked back to the exhibition space and onto the canvas, where he then tried to reassemble the doll back together on the canvas.

Thom Collins described the piece in a biographical writeup for the 2004 group exhibition Witness at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney: "This work, a startling and visceral commentary on the Chinese government mandate of abortions for women conceiving more than the legal limit of one child, led to a quick closure of the exhibition and serious censure of the artist." This experience served as inspiration for the piece 12 Square Meters. is one of Zhang Huan's non-performance pieces, of which he has not done many. The piece consists of 15 photographs of his face where he is covered in what appears to be sea foam. In his mouth is his wife's family.

Family Tree (2000) Family Tree consists of nine sequential images of Zhang Huan's face. The photographs are taken in a chronological order, from dusk to dawn. This performance piece is supposed to be a representation of Zhang's lineage. During the work, Zhang would have three calligraphers write a combination of names known to him, personal stories, learned tales and random thoughts. The calligraphers worked on his face, adding more and more during the chronological period. Eventually, his face was covered by so much calligraphy, it was hard to make out what was actually written.

Peace (2003) Peace is another non-performance art work that Zhang Huan did in order to create a symbolic self-portrait of himself. Again, in order to pay respect to his ancestors, Huan had the bell inscribed with names from eight generations of his ancestors. The bell itself is Tibetan inspired by small bells used in ritual practices. In order to ring the bell, Zhang had a real-life cast made of himself, and hung just a few feet from the bell. The cast version of himself is supposed to represent the compassion that is the necessary counterpart for wisdom. The actual act of ringing the bell is supposed to represent the "artistic struggle with the circumstances of and inheritance from family is both necessarily violent and richly generative."

Selected solo exhibitions

1988 Henan University, Kaifeng 1999 Max Protetch Gallery, New York 2000 Cotthem Gallery, Barcelona 2001 Galerie Albert Benamou, Paris 2002 Kunstverein in Hamburg 2003 Bochum Museum, Bochum 2004 Norton Museum of Art, Florida 2005 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 2006 Sherman Galleries, Sydney 2007 Haunch of Venison, London 2008 Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai 2009 Haunch of Venison, Zürich 2011 Blum & Poe, Los Angeles 2012 Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto 2013 Palazzo Vecchio, Forte di Belvedere, Firenze 2014 Pace London, Spring Poppy Fields