| On view at the Max Lang Gallery this Fall are works by Chinese artist Zhang Huan including performance-based concept photographs (a term used by the artist), works on paper and recent sculptural work. Videos of some of the artist’s past performances will also be screened. This exhibition will be present from September 22 through October 28, 2006. Residing between Shanghai and New York, Zhang Huan began his career in Beijing, as part of a post-Tiananmen creative movement known as the “Beijing East Village.” In his work, the artist commonly uses his own body as subject, often placing himself in physically taxing situations. |  |
Zhang Huan: Selected Works
On view at the Max Lang Gallery this Fall are works by Chinese artist Zhang Huan including performance-based concept photographs (a term used by the artist), works on paper and recent sculptural work. Videos of some of the artist’s past performances will also be screened. This exhibition will be present from September 22 through October 28, 2006.
Residing between Shanghai and New York, Zhang Huan began his career in Beijing, as part of a post-Tiananmen creative movement known as the “Beijing East Village.” In his work, the artist commonly uses his own body as subject, often placing himself in physically taxing situations. These challenges are conceptual and, through them, he explores the cultural tensions that he has experienced both in China and as an expatriate living in New York.
Photographs from Zhang Huan’s most recent series entitled “My Boston,” 2005, are similarly on view. In explaining this body of work, Zhang Huan has said, “When I was young, my mother often told me, ‘you have to study hard so when you grow up you have a bright future.’ But I never liked to read books. I tried many different ways to keep myself awake; I would bite my hands, stab my flesh with a pen.” In “My Boston,” Zhang Huan, while naked, had himself buried with books in a public square outside the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Other photo-based works that will be presented during the exhibition include; Nine Holes, 1995, To Raise the Water Level in a Fish Pond (diagonal
men), 1997, and Skin, 1997, all completed in his native China. More recent explorations in sculpture, such as, Buddha Finger (#2), a large-scale copper piece, will also be on view.
