Zhang Huan - Contemporary Art Day Sale London Sunday, June 29, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Private collection

  • Exhibited

    Paris, Galerie Albert Benamou, 10 October – 10 November, 2001; New York, Luhring Augustine, Zhang Huan, October – November 2001 (other examples exhibited); Hamburg, Bochmum Museum, Zhang Huan, 2002-2003; Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, +Witness, 12 March – 16 May, 2004

  • Literature

    R.Goldberg, “Zhang Huan at Luhring Augustine,” Artforum, March 2000; A.Olesen, “Making Art of Masochism and Tests of Endurance”, New York Times, November 11, 2001; Z. Huan, The Body and the Identity, Paris 2002, pp.196-197 (illustrated); Z. Huan, Me and More, Lucerne 2003, pp.74-81 (illustrated); O. Sand, Zhang Huan, Asian Art Newspaper, January 2003; Y. Dziewior, Zhang Huan, Kunstverein in Hamburg, Hamburg 2003; H.Wu and C.Phillips, eds., Between Past and Future New Photography from China, Chicago 2004, p.140 (illustrated); T.Collins, +Witness, Australia 2004, pp.38-39 (illustrated); M. Gisbourne, Zhang Huan: Palimpsests: Writing on the Body, Berlin 2006  

  • Catalogue Essay

    “Powerful and striking, Zhang Huan's photographic images of his performances can be seen as metaphors for the human condition. In his art, which brings together aspects of dance and theater, the naked human body becomes a vehicle to communicate with others about his experience of the world, both physical and spiritual, and to express the freedom he has found in America. Roberta Smith, writing in The New York Times, described his work as ‘an elegant form of endurance art: efficient, sometimes offhand, and occasionally witty. It is legible without being derivative and unfamiliar without being exotic. Heady, yet grounded.’ Structured, rigorous, sculptural, Zhang Huan’s Family Tree series focuses on large-scale, color close-ups of the artist's face. With their frontality, immediacy, and unflinching honesty, they express his insights about human life, suggesting that even at birth, our personal history is within us, that our destiny is already determined, already written, impossible to change or erase. ‘The face, gradually covered by current culture, is turning black,’ explains the artist. ‘It is impossible to take away your inborn blood and personality. The shadow walks suddenly from early morning to late night, from the first cry of a baby to white-haired old age, standing lonely in front of the window looking at, and eventually peeping into the world, reminiscing about an illusory life.’"
    (Zhang Huan - Family Tree press release taken from www.benamou.net)

444

Family Tree

2000
C-Print on Fuji archival paper.
62.5 x 50.8 cm. (24 5/8 x 20 in).
Signed in Chinese characters and numbered of two printer's proofs on a label adhered to the reverse of the backing board of each.  This work is from an edition of 25 plus two printer's proofs. 

Estimate
£80,000 - 120,000 

Contemporary Art Day Sale

30 June 2008, 10am & 2pm
London