Zhang Huan (b. 1965)
Earth Life No. 16
signed and signed in Chinese, titled and dated 'Zhang Huan 2006. No. 16.' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
63 x 98¼in. (160 x 249.5cm.)
Painted in 2007

PROVENANCE

Haunch of Venison, London.

EXHIBITED

Berlin, Haunch of Venison, Zhang Huan: Berlin Buddha, 2007.
Milan, Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Zhang Huan: Ashman, 2010 (illustrated, p. 122; detail illustrated, p. 123).

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SPECIALIST NOTES

Born in 1965 in Anyang, Henan Province, Zhang Huan is recognised as one of China’s most provocative and influential artists. Zhang Huan became known for his innovative performances in the 1990s in Beijing East Village, through which the artist immersed himself in the tradition of endurance art with the likes of Chris Burden, Tehching Hsieh and Marina Abramovic by testing the physical limits of his body. In 1998 the artist moved to New York and for eight years he performed around the world travelling between North America, Asia and Europe. In 2005 he renounced performance art and moved to his native China where he took up more traditional mediums such as painting and sculpture.

Begun in 2006, the Early Life series - large, luminous canvases featuring life-size, painstakingly hand-painted insects such as dragonflies, mosquitoes, cicadas and ants - is a celebration of life and nature in accordance with the Buddhist principle of treating all living things with equal respect. Zhang Huan’s Earth Life insect paintings are, as the artist states, about ‘everyday life, the human life’, and indeed they are poetic depictions of Zhang’s everyday life experience in China. Suspended in animation, it is as though the artist has plucked the insects from earth and sky, orientating the myriad of forms across the canvas to create a constellational composition – a harmonious vision of man’s relationship with nature as outlined in Buddhist philosophy.

The work of Zhang Huan is represented in many private and public collections including Musée national d'art moderne Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, among others.

Earth Life No. 16 is one of our sale specialist, Amanda Lo Iacono’s, sale highlights. Read more about this piece and her other picks here.

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