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 and Museum, Zhang Huan: Altered States, September 6, 2007–January 20, 2008, pp. 16, 36–37, 40, 42, 61, 63, 70, 104–105, 106–107 (illustrated pp. 104–105)

    • Literature

      My America, exh. cat., Dietch Projects, New York, 2000, n.p. (illustrated)
      Zhang Huan: Selected Works 1995–2006, exh. cat., Max Lang, New York, 2006, p. 5

110

To Raise the Water Level in a Fish Pond (Distant)

signed, titled, numbered, inscribed and dated [in Chinese] ""To Raise the Water Level in a Fish Pond" Zhang Huan 1997 Beijing 9/15" on the reverse
chromogenic print on Fuji archival paper
sheet 40 1/2 x 60 3/4 in. (102.9 x 154.3 cm)
image 50 x 79 5/8 in. (127 x 202.2 cm)

Executed in 1997, this work is number 9 from an edition of 15.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$8,000 - 12,000 

Sold for $8,255

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20th Century & Contemporary Art: Online Auction

17 - 26 July 2023