Zhang Huan

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Zhang Huan (Chinese: 張洹, born 1965) is a Chinese artist based in New York. He is primarily a performance artist but he also occasionally makes photographs and sculpture.

1 Life and work
2 References
3 External links
- 3.1 Video

[edit] Life and work

Zhang Huan was born in An Yang City, He Nan, China. He began his work as part of a small artists’ collective known as the "Beijing East Village" located in a rural outpost 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 performances always involve his body in one way or another, usually naked, occasionally involving masochistic actions; he cites the body as a primary method of communication, describing it as the only means by which people experience the world and vice versa. By using quasi-religious ritual, he seeks to discover the point at which the spiritual can manifest via the corporeal. He uses simple repetitive gestures, usually regarded as meaningless work-for-work’s-sake chores. Buddhism, with its temple music, sculptures and philsophy are a prevalent theme in Zhang Huan’s work.

His sculpture "Long Ear Ash Head," 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.^[1]

He has exhibited at shows including the 2002 Whitney Biennial and Rituals at the Academy of Art in Berlin.