Zhang Huan

mounted on card, framed under Plexiglas



Executed in 2002, this work is number four from an edition of eight.

Hamburg, Kunstverein in Hamburg, Zhang Huan, November 2002 - February 2003, p. 92
Bern and Hamburg, Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection, 2005, p.320
 Denmark, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Made in China: Works from the Estella Collection, March - August 2007, fig.102
Jerusalem, The Israel Museum, Made in China: Contemporary Chinese Art at the Israel Museum, September 2007 - March 2008

Zhu Qi, ed., Chinese Avant-Garde Photography Since 1990, Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House, 2004, p. 95

Generally in good condition. Some minor creases and small scratches overall. Approx 9cm diagonal scratch to the left of the figure's right shoulder.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Zhang Huan, arguably the most prominent performance artist from China today, was born in 1965 in An Yang City in Henan province. Educated at Henan University, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1988, and at Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts, where he received his master's in painting in 1993, Zhang was subsequently a member of Beijing's East Village community, a collective of artists living in a squalid neighborhood on the outskirts of Beijing. There from 1992 to 1994, Zhang became famous for his edgy physical performances, the photographs of which have become some of the best-recognized images of contemporary Chinese art.

 

The bizarre but poetic circumstances Zhang has orchestrated in order to create moments of sublime physical tension resonant with social commentary have contributed to his international recognition. In scenes that recall the attitudes of American performance artists in the 1970's, such as Chris Burden and Taiwanese expatriate Tehching Hsieh, among others, Zhang exposed his body to extreme situations, which included sitting in a filthy, fly-infested public latrine on a hot day while covered with honey and fish oil (Twelve Square Meters, 1994). After spending a number of years in New York—he was first invited there to perform at New York's PS1 in 1998—Zhang recently moved back to Shanghai where he has established a studio that now employs more than a hundred people working on diverse projects in a range of media.

 

The photograph entitled To Raise the Water Level of a Fishpond (Lot 1142) consists of a number of itinerant workers placed at random in a large pond; as they stand in water that reaches their chest, they mutely stare back at the viewer, communicating a calm that gives them dignity despite their circumstances as anonymous labors and the peculiarity of this particular day's work. Zhang, too, stands in the water, with a small boy sitting on his shoulders; like the workers, they also radiate a tranquil countenance. Zhang's meditation on the fate of the Chinese worker, who has moved to the city from rural fields, seems particularly moving; beyond the fishpond and the background trees, a white high-rise apartment building is seen on the right—a symbol of the new China that has attracted such workers to urban centers and whose labor has facilitated China's economic development. Yet here they work in large number to achieve only the minimal, purposeless impact of the performance work's title. Almost immediately an icon of contemporary Chinese art, the chromogenic print is a poignant study of fate and the way it is played out in China today.

 

Skin (Cheek, Eyes, Nose) (Lot 1144) shows Zhang tugging away at his cheek, pressing his eyes with his middle fingers, and closing his right nostril with the index finger of his right hand. The drama of the physical action is undercut by Zhang's blank mien. The postures emphasize the flexibility of the artist's chiseled features, and we are reminded the artist enjoys making a spectacle of himself, sometimes in an almost humorous way. In referencing similar works by Bruce Nauman of the late 1960's and early '70's, Zhang seems to pay homage to the legacy of performance that both enables his work and provides the interpretive framework within which its significance can be understood.

 

In Pilgrimage—Wind and Water (Lot 1145), Zhang's first public performance in America, the artist literally dove into the courtyard gravel at PS1 in New York City. Rhythmically moving across the courtyard and towards the steps of this famous alternative venue, Zhang reached a Chinese bed covered with a three inch mattress of ice, to which numerous canines of different species had been leashed. The artist removed his clothes and lay naked and face down upon the ice for a period of several minutes. All the while, Tibetan chant resonated from speakers placed atop PS1's roof. The chromogenic print of Zhang's performance on the ice shows an improbable juxtaposition of imagery and a peculiar test of endurance that define the artist's practice. Zhang explained the presence of the dogs as a reflection of his surprise at the sentimental manner in which they are treated in America; combined with the solemn chanting of the monks, the barks of the leashed animals created genuine cacophony. Here as elsewhere, and working largely by intuition, Zhang builds for the viewer's benefit a multi-sensory microcosm of his transnational experiences.

 

A later New York performance is documented in My New York #4 (Lot 1141), in which the artist wears a massive muscle suit of bright red meat. Commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American art in conjunction with its biennial exhibition, the work consisted of the meat-suited Zhang making his way along surrounding streets on the Upper East Side, releasing white doves with the help of randomly-chosen bystanders. Clearly, Zhang embodies in this work a parable of American culture, its pursuit of a hypertrophic physical ideal no less than its quest for worldwide supremacy. The release of the doves suggests a Buddhist interpretation, in which merit is attained by freeing sentient creatures. The liberation of the doves, a symbol of peace in the West, substantiates the Buddhist ideal of nonviolence toward all life, just as the muscle suit embodies the aggressive aspects of contemporary American society. The picture shows Zhang's predilection for the unforgettable tableau, which endures in the viewer's mind even if the meaning of the image remains mysterious.  Here, however, the inherent critical message seems uncharacteristically clear.

 

The last of the works offered here, Seeds of Hamburg (Lot 1143), documents in twelve photographs a performance in which Zhang was coated with honey and sunflower seeds and placed in a large, chicken-wire cage with twenty-eight pigeons. Assuming different poses over the course of the performance, Zhang was a magnet for the birds, which pecked at his food-covered body. At the end of the action, Zhang emerged from the cage and released a single bird. The German location of the performance is significant in its reference to the artist Joseph Beuys (1921-86), who once taught in Hamburg.  Beuys also deployed honey as a symbolic medium in his own work (as a conductor of warmth and life's energies), and the shamanistic character of Beuys' widely influential oeuvre is a precursor to similar qualities one finds eloquently expressed in the work of Zhang Huan. Like the great German artist, Zhang is intent upon embodying life forces in performances whose enduring visual appeal is matched by the richness of interpretive possibilities they pose.  Although in recent years Zhang has embraced a wide variety of other media and claimed that his days of performance are behind him, this body of his work remains a landmark achievement in the history of Chinese contemporary art.