Zhang, Huan (Phaidon Contemporary Artists Series) - Softcover

Yilmaz Dziewior; Zhang Huan; RoseLee Goldberg; Robert Storr

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714849243 ISBN 13: 9780714849249

Publisher: Phaidon Press, 2009

Synopsis

Zhang Huan, born in 1965 in the Chinese province Honan, was among the first artists in China who turned to performance art at the beginning of the 1990s. His artwork continues to explore the tragedies of the human condition and the spiritual essence of Buddhism.

About this title

About the Author:

Interview: RoseLee Goldberg is an art historian, critic and curator who pioneered the study of performance art. Author of several seminal books, including Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present (1979) and Performance: Live Art from the 1960s (1998), she is the Founding Director of `Performa', a non-profit organization for the development, commission and presentation of performance art. Survey: Yilmaz Dziewior is a critic and curator based in Hamburg, where he is professor in art theory at the Hochschule fur bildende Kunste. Formerly Curator at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne and Director of the Kunstverein in Hamburg, where he organized an exhibition of Zhang Huan's work in 2002, he is currently Co-Curator of the 7th Biennial Exhibition of Visual Arts in Limerick (2009). His writing has been published in Artforum, Camera Austria and Texte zur Kunst, as well as in numerous exhibition catalogues. Focus: Robert Storr is Dean of the School of Art at Yale University. Formerly Senior Curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he directed the SITE Santa Fe Biennial in 2004 and the Venice Biennale in 2007. He was a contributing author to Phaidon's Alex Katz (2005), Louise Bourgeois (2003) and Raymond Pettibon (2001), and writes regularly for numerous journals and magazines, including Art in America, Frieze and Parkett.

Review:

"One of the foremost artists in China's new wave, Zhang Huan creates personal and politicised work that encompasses performance art, photography, painting, installation and sculpture. Zhang Huan is a monograph assessing the impact of his explorations of identity, transgression and spirituality. It takes in his early, often extreme, performance art in China and New York - My New York for the 2002 Whitney Biennial, saw him donning a suit sewn from raw beef, imitating the bodybuilders he had seen who tried to adopt an appearance of strength to hide their real weakness and unease - and takes us up to his laboriously created, deeply affected ash paintings and sculptures, created with incense ash collected from Shanghai temples."-Metro On the Contemporary Artists Series "The boldest, best executed, and most far-reaching publishing project devoted to contemporary art. These books will revolutionize the way contemporary art is presented and written about."-Artforum "The combination of intelligent analysis, personal insight, useful facts and plentiful pictures is a superb format invaluable for specialists but also interesting for casual readers, it makes these books a must for the library of anyone who cares about contemporary art."-Time Out "A unique series of informative monographs on individual artists."-The Sunday Times "Gives the reader the impression of a personal encounter with the artists. Apart from the writing which is lucid and illuminating, it is undoubtedly the wealth of lavish illustrations which makes looking at these books a satisfying entertainment."-The Art Book

About this edition

• Publisher: Phaidon Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0714849243
• ISBN 13: 9780714849249
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160
• Editor: Michele Robecchi, Craig Garrett