Zhang Huan: An Artist With An Eye for Incense Ash
The depiction of the human soul is not a task every artist can handle. For Zhang Huan, one of the most recognizable names in Chinese art and a man acclaimed for “getting naked in the name of art,” his attentions have turned to the exploration of the soul, a journey symbolized by the medium of incense ash.
A former performance artist, the 45-year-old is now fully clothed and his solo exhibition, which was two years in the making and named Free Tigers Return to Mountains, was featured until July 20th at the Pace Gallery in the 798 art district.
His latest sculptures are made from cowhide and the paintings, which depict dozens of tigers, all incorporate incense ash gathered from different temples.
“The ash contains a magical strength to comfort the soul… The ash is a unique material to me. It holds and reflects people’s hopes and wishes because people in China usually pray by burning incense,” said Zhang.
The name of the exhibit also holds special meaning for the artist.
“It has something to do with the environment. Literally, it means freeing the endangered tigers and letting them return to where they belong. But it is also about the release of natural power and ecology which becomes more harmonized because of it,” he told the press.
Zhang trained as a painter in the early 1990s at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts, after which he went to live in the city’s famous East Village an avant-garde art community, which was located very close to the luxurious Great Wall Hotel.
Soon he became known as a man who often performed naked in front of an audience and in 1994 he gained widespread attention for his work at 12 Square Meters, in which he sat silently for one hour in a public toilet, his body smeared with honey and fish oil to attract flies and insects to his skin!
To say that Zhang has a quirky sense of humor is somehow not saying enough. Even after moving to New York in 1998 (where quirky reigns supreme) he was still using his body as an artistic medium. In 2002, in honor of his art exhibition My New York, he dressed in a suit of raw pork, which resembled bulging muscles and paraded along busy metropolitan streets.
He soon traveled to many countries and began to turn his attentions to photography and sculpture. In 2005, he returned to China, settling in Shanghai. He eliminated performance art from his repertoire and some four years ago began painting with incense ash.
“It was so special that words cannot express. We felt like we were working with numerous souls in the ashes,” said Zhang.
Ash paintings have become his favorite media and he creates not only paintings but also installations. One of his latest pieces made in honor of the Shanghai Expo features a pair of stainless steel pandas. It stands as a permanent public sculpture near the China Pavilion.
If art is all about innovation and creativity, Zhang Huan has stolen the key and the door it opens as well.
What do YOU think about this?
By MDeeDubroff on 31-07-2010
