Zhang huan biography of donald
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It embodies the harmony and unity of collective religious ceremony as well as the intensely private, individual experience of prayer. It was during his graduate studies that he adopted the name Zhang Huan, symbolizing a personal and artistic rebirth.
Key Life Events & Historical Context
In the early 1990s, Zhang emerged as a central figure in Beijing’s East Village, an underground community of avant-garde artists living on the margins of society.
He received several negative comments from his peers as well as his teachers. The group’s radical performances were shaped by the repressive political atmosphere following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which intensified Zhang’s exploration of individual agency within collective history.
Zhang Huan: Evoking Tradition
3 May to 9 November, 2014
Storm King Art Center, New York, USA
Storm King’s major exhibition in 2014 will feature the work of acclaimed Chinese artist Zhang Huan.
Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum, Abu Dhabi, The United Arab Emirates
The New Frontiers of Painting, Stelline Foundation, Milan, Italy
Luther and the Avant-garde, Wittenberg Old Prison, Wittenberg, Germany
Chinese Summer, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway
Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World, Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
Seeking Spirituality in Contemporary Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, USA
Chinese Dreams, Bakalar & Paine Galleries, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, USA
La Balade pour la Paix, an Open-air Museum, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada
Takashi Murakami’s Superflat Collection, Yokohama Art Museum, Yokohama, Japan
M+ Sigg Collection: Four Decades of Chinese Contemporary Art, ArtisTree, Hong Kong, China
Busan Biennale 2016, Busan Museum of Art, Busan, South Korea
OCD: A Collection of One’s Own, Castile-Leon Museum of Contemporary Art, Leon, Spain
Contemporary China, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
Force of Stillness: Embodying Meditation in Creative Practice, Rubin Museum of Art, New York, USA
Envisions: Sculptures @ the Garden City, Clifford Square, Singapore
Go East: The Gene & Brian Sherman Contemporary Asian Collection, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
The Wondrous All: Leading Edge of Eastern Thought, Taipei Fine Art Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
Myth/History II: Shanghai Galaxy, YUZ Museum Shanghai, Shanghai, China
CHINA 8-Contemporary Art from China on the Rhine and Ruhr, Duisburg, Germany
2015 Biennale China-Italia, Mastiodellacittadella, Turin, Italy
28 Chinese, Rubell Family Collection, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, USA
15 Rooms, Long Museum, Shanghai, China
Shanghai Urban Space Art Season, Art West Bund, Shanghai, China
Conceal/Reveal: Making Meaning in Chinese Art, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, USA
The Magic Power of Characters-3000 Years of Chinese Calligraphy, Museum Rietberg, Zurich, Switzerland
Utopian Days-Freedom, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea
Myth/History: YUZ Collection of Contemporary Art, YUZ Museum Shanghai, Shanghai, China
A History, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
Collection De Heus-Zomer: Chinese Art, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Where is China?
He then smashed a jar filled with red food coloring and disembodied baby doll parts and covered himself with the jar's contents before attempting to reassemble the doll parts on the canvas. Three Legged Buddha (2007), a sculpture that stands nearly twenty-eight feet high and weighs more than twelve tons, and was gifted to Storm King in 2010, is the starting point for 2014 exhibition.
In 1998, seeking greater artistic freedom and international dialogue, he relocated to New York City. His early performances used the body as both medium and message, emphasizing vulnerability, pain, and presence. His 1994 piece *12 Square Meters*, in which he sat exposed in a public latrine coated in fish oil and honey, drew international attention for its visceral critique of urban alienation.
He has had solo exhibitions at the Norton Museum of Art, Florida, the PAC museum, Milan, the Shanghai Art Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto and has been featured in group exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Whitney Museum, New York, Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Pompidou Center, Paris etc.
A fully illustrated catalogue, including an essay by Richard Vine, will be published to accompany the exhibition.
Zhang has said, "Three-Legged Buddha is a monster from another world, a soul rushing out from hell.
By blending the features of Buddha with his own, Zhang presents a sort of new self-portrait that indicates the tranquility he has found in more recent years. The figurative work adheres to a controlled set of images used by the government to craft a tailored representation of Chinese history, while the Braille paintings follow a standardized system of reading and writing.
After a decade abroad, he returned to China in 2006, establishing a vast studio complex in Shanghai that enabled the production of monumental works in sculpture, painting, and wood relief, marking a new phase of technical ambition and spiritual inquiry.
Influences
Zhang Huan’s artistic development was shaped by a confluence of traditional Chinese culture and global contemporary art currents.
He remained at Henan University as a teacher in the art department for the next three years before moving to Beijing where he changed his name, abandoning the revolutionary connotations of 'Dongming'. Figures such as He Yunchang and Zhu Yu have cited his fearless physicality and conceptual rigor as formative influences. The authorities had been displeased with what they considered to be the "inappropriate" goings-on of the community for some time, and jumped at the opportunity to make an arrest and shut it down for good.
China has given me more passion and drive. Your eyes, nose, mouth, ears, cheekbone, and moles indicate your future, wealth, sex, disease, etc. His career reflects the wave of modern Chinese art that became internationally recognized in the early 2000s, and his practice continues to shape and reflect the international art market's concept of active and significant Chinese artists.
Accomplishments
- Central to Zhang's work (and to the wider development of contemporary Chinese art) is the combination of Western artistic techniques and concepts with traditional Chinese cultural production.