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Zhang Huan's often traumatic performances
are memory retrievals, recollections of suffering. For example, a 1994
performance in a public toilet in a rundown area of Beijing referred
to the abortions and female infanticides which occurred under the Chinese
government's one child policy. The artist covered himself with honey
and fish oil, sat motionless for several hours attracting flies and
ants before immerging himself in a nearby river. Zhan Huan's
group performances, involving nine or more people, use logic to defy
logic, culminating in rigid formations - a pyramid of naked bodies,
people standing motionless in water, figures face down on the ground.
While paralleling the rigidity and alienating effects of social structures,
they give further expression to the trauma of the collective. The result
of great shock of suffering and trauma manifest itself in intense physical
and emotional pain. It belongs both to the individual - Zhang Huan's
history and that of his family - and the collectivity - a nation emergingfrom
the brutality of the Cultural Revolution, from famine, political repression,
ideological zeal and the hardship of everyday life in China. Zhang
Huan is hailed as one of the foremost artist of the new wave from
China.
Zhang Huan was born in 1963, 3
January, in An Yang City, He Nan Province, China.
In 1989 Graduated Reitveld Academy, Amsterdam.
Currently lives and works in Amsterdam.
1991-1993: Graduate from the Central Academy of Line Arts,Beijing.
1984-1988:Graduate from the Art Department, He Nan University, Kai Feng.
and beguiling.
1988-1991: Instructor, Art Department, He Nan University,Kay Feng.
Selected Exhibitions
| 2000 |
Zhang Huan: Cotthem Gallery, Barcelona,
Spain.
Biennale de Lyon, France.
Zhang Huan, Cotthem Gallery, Knokke-Zoute, Belgium.
Video via Venice, Institute of contemporary Art, Boston.
The Century of the body/Photoworks 1900-2000, Culturgest,
Lisbon, Travelling to Musee de LÕElysee, Lausanne.
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| 1999 |
Self-Portraits, Mercer Union,
a Centre Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada.
Five Continents and a City, Second Intenational Salon of Painting,
Museum of Mexico City, Mexico City. Best of The Season, Aldrich
Museum of Contemporary Art, Rigefield, Connecticut.
Stories, A/C Projects Space, New York.
Summit, Galerie 5020, Salzburg, Austria.
Art-Worlds in Dialogue, Museum Ludwig, Cologne.
Risk Cinema, Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Zhang Huan: Performance (working title), Artspace,
Auckland, New Zealand.
Zhang Huan: A Video Survev 1994-1998.Performance Art from China,
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Plymouth, New Zealand.
La Biennale di Venezia.
Zhang Huan, Max Protetch Gallery, New York.
The Kent and Vicki Logan Collection, San Francisco.
Contemporary Colectors, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego.
Transience: Chinese Art at End of the Twentieth Century,
The Smart Museum of Art, Chicago.
Yn Your Face, New Langton Arts, San Francisco. |
| 1998 |
Inside Out: New Chinese Art, Asia
Society and PS 1, New York, travelling to San Francisco. Museum
Of Modern Art in February 1999.
In Your Face, New Langton, Pittsburgh. |
| 1997 |
Chinese Contemporary Art 1997,
Watary Museum, Tokyo. NIPFA 97, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagano. |
| 1996 |
China Art Festival, Munich.
Art Material of ChinaÕs Avant Garde, Fungang, Tokyo. |
| 1995 |
Configura 2, Erfurt. |
| 1993 |
The Art of the 90Õs, The China
National Art Gallery, Beijing.
Graduate Show, The Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing.
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| Performances |
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| 1999 |
November:Incompatable as Fire and
Water, Rubell Family Collections, Miami.
April: Dream of the Dragon, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.
March: Sunshine series, concept photograph, New York.
February: Breath series, concept photgraph, Miami. |
| 1998 |
October: Pilgrimage - Wind and Water
on New York, body experiment, PS 1, New York, (video and photo
recording).
June: 1/2 series, concept photograph, Beijing.
February: Foam series, concept photograph, Beijing. |
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