Zhang Huan is acclaimed as one of the foremost artist of the new wave from China.Zhang Huan's personal and family history - and collective - a nation emerging from the brutality of the Cultural Revolution, famine, political repression, ideological zeal, and the hardship of everyday life in China.Zhang is considered one of the most influential artists who belonged to the group 'Beijing East Village," a kind of art colony located in the rural outskirts of Beijing.



Zhang Huan was born in 1963, 3 January, in An Yang City, He Nan Province, China.

Education:

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.

Zhang, 40, pioneered performance work in China in the 1990s. He moved to New York in 1998. His work fits neatly into a tradition that includes Joseph Beuys (who wrapped himself in felt and shut himself in a room with a coyote for five days in 1974) and Yoko Ono (who sat stock still while audience members took turns cutting her clothing off in 1964). In work like this, the artist's body becomes a metaphor for us all, as well as our existential agonies, which are sometimes no less absurd than being pecked at by pigeons.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.

Zhang chooses performance as his primary art form because of its inherent relationship with the body. The performance "To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain" took place in the Chinese countryside; several performers lie on top of the other in a blunted pyramid.

Zhang Huan - Private and Corporate Collections

? The Progressive Collection, Mayfield Village (USA)

? Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (USA)

? Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA (USA)

? The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago (USA)

? The Marieluise Hessel Foundation Collection, Bard College, Center Curatorial Studies, Annendale-on-Hudson, NY (USA)

? The Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (Japan)

? Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka (Japan)

? Emily Fisher Landau Collection, New York (USA)

Find More about Zhang Huan Paintings and Exhibitions at Saatchi-Gallery

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/zhang_huan.htm