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Zhang Huan (Chinese, b.1965)
LOT ID: 65188
Foam V, 1998

Chromogenic Print (C-print)
40 х 27 in. cm.
Signed
Edition AP 2/5
Lot description
Zhang Huan, Foam V, 1998. C-print, 40 x 27 inches (101.6 x 68.6 cm). AP 2/5. Signed. Framed.

Zhang Huan was born in 1965, in Anyang, Henan Province, and studied at the Art Academy of Henan before graduating in 1991 from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. He currently divides his time between New York, Shanghai and Berlin. He came to the attention of the art world in 1993 when Ai Wei Wei wrote three books The White Book, The Gray Book and the Black Book, each immortalizing a different performance artist, one of whom was Zhang Huan. Two of his most famous early performances were The Anonymous Mountain Raised by a Meter, in 1995, where nine or ten naked bodies were stacked on top of one another on a hill and To Raise the Water Level in a Pond (1997). In this performance, a group of men stand up to their chests in water, looking into the camera. With this poetically absurd performance, Zhang Huan shows that collective action can actually have an effect.

In other works, Zhang Huan has subjected himself to extreme physical and mental ordeals. In 64 Kilograms (1994), he had himself suspended horizontally by chains, naked, face down, with a small opening in a vein. His blood dripped onto a hotplate of a stove, where it evaporated. Or he crouched for hours on a public toilet – naked, motionless, his body smeared with honey and fish oil – until he was covered in flies. This performance, 12 Square Meters (1994), could be interpreted as a condemnation of the deplorable cramped living conditions in the overpopulated cities.

In this particular series, Foam, Zhang lathers himself with soap and water, letting the foam act as a cleansing and purifying agent. He then ate pictures of his family members and ancestors in a symbolic act by which he incorporated the past into his present. While his art seeks to reconcile China’s brutal past with the present, his process takes place on a very personal level. Like his series Family Tree, in which he wrote the names of his ancestors all over his face, the Foam series also conveys this idea that the past is always with us and that we must actively come to terms with it.
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  • Zhang Huan

    Foam
    photographs, chromogenic print (c-print)
    (H 40, W 27) in.
    (101.6 x 68.6) cm.
    Ed. Edition of 15- AP 1
    Sold for: US$10,350 €
    Tuesday, November 30, 2010
    artnet Auctions
    Lot 37807

  • Zhang Huan

    To raise the water level in a fish pond (Diagonal men)
    color coupler print
    (H 40, W 60) in.
    (101.6 x 152.4) cm.
    Ed. 12/15
    Sold for: US$12,127 €
    Saturday, November 22, 2008
    Phillips de Pury & Company London
    Lot 00125

  • Zhang Huan

    Meat #3 - Meat and text (from 1/2 series)
    c-type
    (H 58.5, W 39.8) in.
    (148.5 x 101) cm.
    Ed. 5/15
    Sold for: US$15,363 €
    Tuesday, November 18, 2008
    Sotheby's London
    Lot 00145

  • Zhang Huan

    The foam series
    chromogenic print
    (H 39.8, W 26.8) in.
    (101 x 68) cm.
    Ed. AP ed.3
    Sold for: US$18,566 €
    Sunday, May 28, 2006
    Christie's Hong Kong
    Lot 00438
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