Zhang Huan - 20th Century & Contemporary Art: Online Auction New York Monday, July 17, 2023 | Phillips

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  • Zhang Huan is widely considered to be one of the most important contemporary artists in the world. Despite receiving an MA in oil painting from the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1993, Zhang’s first works were physically and emotionally intense performances that conjured comparisons to titans of the genre such as Marina Abramovic and Chris Burden. Working and living in an artist’s community outside Beijing, called the “East Village” in reference to New York’s historical hotbed for emerging artists, Zhang put his mind and body through tortuous trials to explore elements of the human condition, relationships between people and place, and the reverberations of an increasingly globalized society.

     

    Towards the end of the 1990s, Zhang began to venture into collaborative performance works with other artists of the Beijing East Village. The present lots, To Raise the Water Level in a Fish Pond and To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain, are the most famous of these collaborative efforts. For Zhang, these works were odes to the rural way of life he grew up in, describing them as “a necessity for me. The mountain and pond pieces referred back to my need for the countryside.” 

     

    To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain involved Zhang and nine other Beijing East Village artists lying naked on top of one another to increase the height of Miaofeng Mountain, located outside of Beijing. According to Zhang, the work was inspired by a traditional Chinese saying: “Beyond the mountain, there are more mountains.”ii Zhang addresses the crux of this saying – the idea that there is always a larger obstacle in the future – by attempting to change the mountain itself.

     

    For Zhang, the presence of nature within these performances symbolizes an unchanging reality, “the natural state of things.”iii Trying to alter the physical measurements of this represents an embrace of free will and reminds viewers that small actions can have large impacts.

     

    To Raise the Water Level in a Fish Pond was completed with the help of a group of over 40 migrant workers. The performance consisted of Zhang and the workers circling the pond, then standing in a line in the water to effectively split the pond into two, and finally partially submerging themselves until the water level of the pond increased by a meter. This illuminates the relationship between humans and nature, and how this relationship changed as society developed. As Zhang himself notes, his attempts to alter nature are ultimately futile, as the height of the mountain and the water level both revert to their original figures after the conclusion of the performances.iv However, the modern skyscrapers that loom amongst the clouds in the background serve as a reminder of how the sense of balance between humans and nature has shifted throughout history.

     

    In addition, To Raise the Water Level in a Fish Pond addresses inequality inherent in modern life. Zhang’s choice to highlight the workers’ physical presence brought a historically marginalized group to the attention of a society they were largely omitted from.

     

    Throughout his career, Zhang has cultivated an idiosyncratic oeuvre that explores visceral realities of modern life. To Raise the Water Level in a Fish Pond and To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain are two prominent examples of Zhang’s ability to encapsulate cultural nuances from a specific time and place while simultaneously raising larger questions about the human experience.

     

     

    Zhang Huan, quoted in RoseLee Goldberg, “Interview with Zhang Huan,” Zhang Huan, New York, 2009, pp. 19–20.

    ii Ibid.

    iii Ibid.

    iv Zhang Huan, “Artist’s Writings,” in Zhang Huan, New York, 2009, p. 117.

    • Provenance

      Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      New York, Asia Society Galleries; New York, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco; Monterrey, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo; Seattle, Tacoma Art Museum; Seattle, Henry Art Gallery, Inside Out: New Chinese Art, September 15, 1998–March 7, 2000, pl. 49, p. 193 (another example exhibited and illustrated)
      New York, Deitch Projects, MY AMERICA, April 15–May 27, 2000, n.p. (another example exhibited and illustrated)
      Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Exposure: Recent Acquisitions: The Doron Sebbag Art Collection, O.R.S. Ltd., November 8, 2000–February 3, 2001, no. 38, pp. 65, 109 (another example exhibited and illustrated, p. 65)
      Seattle Art Museum, ContemporaryArtProject, December 20, 2002–April 6, 2003, pl. 6, pp. 20, 68 (another example exhibited and illustrated, p. 20)
      San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Supernova: Art of the 1990s from the Logan Collection, December 13, 2003–May 23, 2004, pl. 46, pp. 106–107, 185 (another example exhibited and illustrated, pp. 106–107)
      New York, Asia Society and Museum, Zhang Huan: Altered States, September 6, 2007–January 20, 2008, pp. 16–17, 34–35, 40, 42, 64–65, 102–103, 171 (another example exhibited and illustrated, pp. 102–103)
      New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World, October 6, 2017–February 24, 2019, pl. 59, pp. 178, 183 (another example exhibited and illustrated, p. 183)

    • Literature

      Qian Zhijian, "Performing Bodies: Zhang Huan, Ma Liuming, and Performance Art in China," Art Journal, vol. 58, no. 2, Summer 1999, fig. 5, pp. 60, 70 (another example illustrated, p. 60)
      Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection, exh. cat., Kunstmuseum Bern, 2005, p. 158, 320 (another example illustrated, p. 320)
      Sheldon Lu, Chinese Modernity and Global Biopolitics, Honolulu, 2007, pp. 79–81 (another example illustrated, p. 81)
      Melissa Chiu, Chinese Contemporary Art: 7 Things You Should Know, New York, 2008, p. 56 (another example illustrated)
      Yilmaz Dziewior, Roselee Goldberg and Robert Storr, Zhang Huan, New York, 2009, p. 51, 158 (another example illustrated, p. 51)
      Susan Mann, Gender and Sexuality in Modern Chinese History, Cambridge, 2011, fig. 19, p. 96 (another example illustrated)
      Diane Fortenberry and Rebecca Morrill, eds., Body of Art, London, 2015, pp. 328–329 (another example illustrated, p. 329)
      Christopher Phillips and Wu Hung, eds., Life and Dreams: Contemporary Chinese Photography and Media Art, New York, 2018, pp. 76–77, 333, 367 (another example illustrated, p. 77)
      Yan Zhou, A History of Contemporary Chinese Art: 1949 to Present, Singapore, 2020, p. 311–312 (another example illustrated, p. 312)

109

To Add One Meter to An Anonymous Mountain

signed, titled, numbered, inscribed and dated [in Chinese] ""To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain" Zhang Huan 1995 Beijing 13/15" on the reverse
chromogenic print on Fuji archival paper
image 40 7/8 x 60 1/2 in. (103.8 x 153.7 cm)
sheet 49 7/8 x 96 3/4 in. (126.7 x 245.7 cm)

Executed in 1995, this work is number 13 from an edition of 15.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$8,000 - 12,000 

Sold for $8,890

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20th Century & Contemporary Art: Online Auction

17 - 26 July 2023