THEARTIST 68 THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE: ZHANG HUAN STUDIO ZHANG HUAN AND OPPOSITE: THIS PAGE MAY/JUNE 2013 | BLOUINARTINFO.COMASIA 05/06BAIAsia_ZhangHuan.V.11.indd 68 4/26/13 12:26 PM MEDICINE MAN 69 With his newest work, Zhang Huan contemplates how to cure life’s ills and save our souls THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE: ZHANG HUAN STUDIO ZHANG HUAN AND OPPOSITE: THIS PAGE BY ADELINE CHIA BLOUINARTINFO.COMASIA | MAY/JUNE 2013 05/06BAIAsia_ZhangHuan.V.11.indd 69 4/26/13 12:26 PM THEARTIST CHINESE HERBOLOGY, A COMPLEX SYSTEM HARNESSING animal, vegetable, and mineral elements to treat illnesses, has been the backbone of Chinese traditional medicine for thousands of years. In artist Zhang Huan’s latest series of work, to be shown at Pace Gallery in New York in spring 2014, it is the medium with which he creates textured paintings about “physical birth, senility, illness, and death.” 70 Offering a sneak peek, Zhang, who is one of China’s most prominent contemporary artists, reveals a series that draws on both personal and political history—with implications of hysteria and a slow-spreading sickness. There are dark scenes of ritual shaming from the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Communist propaganda images, and, interestingly, portraits of British royalty, including the back of a white bouffant head that is unmistakably the queen’s, captured imperfectly in these scented, dusty remains, and though Zhang is coy about the implications of the is also a symbol of prayer and hope. British subject matter, saying only that “British royalty As to how the Chinese medicine paintings are a has a special relationship with modern Britain and continuation of his previous ideas, he says both Chinese the rest of the world.” herbs and ash have curative properties. “While Chinese He wants his paintings, like the herbal materials used medicine is used to cure cancers in human bodies, ash This page: Eternal to make them, to be ultimately healing. “We can draw is used for mankind’s mental illness.” To him, ash, made from Crown, 2012. Says Zhang, “I’d lessons from history, dui zheng xia yao,” he says, repeating joss sticks that Chinese Buddhists and Taoists offer like to make a an aphorism that means one must identify the illness to the gods for blessings and deliverance, is a therapeutic prescription for the queen of the and treat it with the right medicine, “and give China the substance. “It is our collective soul, our memories, our hope, U.K.” Opposite right prescription for the future.” and our blessings,” he says. This “living, breathing sub- page: “Ordinary people are the The Chinese medical herbs are dried, colored, and stance” is meticulously collected by his staff from temples foundation affixed to the surface of the canvas—a process not around Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou every month. of the era and the society,” says unlike what he has done with his famous monochrome At age 48, Zhang is one of China’s biggest art stars; his Zhang describing ash paintings, where burned incense is used like paint. installations and sculptures are exhibited in top museums Wang Yufeng, 2012. “I can see Ash is a trademark of Zhang’s work. In recent years, worldwide and internationally collected. Currently, he has a myself in it has been used in his most iconic pieces, such as the major solo exhibition on view at the Palazzo Vecchio, an this painting.” Previous spread: monumental ash statues of Buddha and other works that ancient town hall in Florence, Italy. The exhibition, titled Prescription reference his recurring themes of life, death, and rebirth. “Soul and Spirit,” is a far-ranging showcase that runs No. 1, 2012, depicts Mao Ash has also been used in a series of “historical” through several parts of the historic building and around it, Zedong in his later paintings, impastoed works depicting scenes from China’s extending to Fort Belvedere and the Boboli Gardens. years. At left, Zhang in his Cultural Revolution, Chinese leaders, and anonymous But despite his artistic preoccupation with the spiritual, studio in 2009. family portraits. Here, it embodies a sense of the past, Zhang, who converses in Mandarin, is a straight shooter MAY/JUNE 2013 | BLOUINARTINFO.COMASIA 05/06BAIAsia_ZhangHuan.V.11.indd 70 4/26/13 12:26 PM 71 THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE: ZHANG HUAN STUDIO ZHANG HUAN AND OPPOSITE: THIS PAGE BLOUINARTINFO.COMASIA | MAY/JUNE 2013 05/06BAIAsia_ZhangHuan.V.11.indd 71 4/26/13 12:27 PM THEARTIST 72 Bloodstained Garment, 2012, is based on an oil painting showing a scene from China’s Land Revolution. “Borrowing the classic image as an allegory of the present is full of thought- provoking practi- cal significance,” says Zhang. with an impish air. A joke is never far away. He says his Later, after an eight-year sojourn in New York, Buddhism two children, a son aged 13 and a daughter aged 11, are not became a recurring theme in his work (he officially good at their studies. “You can’t run away from DNA,” he became a Buddhist in 2005), but he says he is not making adds with a chuckle. “Their father’s is too strong.” Buddhist art. “I’m using Buddhism to talk about being It has often been pointed out that his recent work— human, about being in the world.” meditative, calm, concerned with mortality—is a lifetime From physical transgression in ephemeral acts to a away from the hell-raising performance pieces that Buddhist-inspired quest for enlightenment—looking back, established his career in the early 1990s. One of the youngest what does he think of his journey so far? “To be honest, members of experimental Beijing East Village group, he I’ve been fighting for so long so that I can make a living did several seminal works where he used his body in extreme, through my art. Back in my Beijing days, I often wondered, potentially self-destructive exercises. ‘When will the day come that I can make money from Among the most famous is 12 Square Meters, 1994, this?’ Now there’s no need to think about these things, and where he sat naked in a public toilet, covered in fish oil I’m happy to be able to provide employment to others.” and honey, while flies engulfed him. It was inspired by the He hires about 100 assistants for his 50,000-square-meter small, filthy bathrooms in rural villages and the studio-cum-factory space. exploration of the tension between disgust and attraction. Then he grows ruminative and says mysteriously, “But MAY/JUNE 2013 | BLOUINARTINFO.COMASIA 05/06BAIAsia_ZhangHuan.V.11.indd 72 5/1/13 11:33 AM 8 QUESTIONS FOR ZHANG HUAN When did you know you opposite of America. There wanted to be an artist? were opportunities When I was 14 years old. everywhere. It was like I always loved sketching, a grand experiment—you and all I wanted then was to could find the good and draw a portrait realistically. the bad, the old and the Academically, I was a poor new, the nice and the nasty, student with poor con- the sexy and unsexy. centration skills. I was very There were no rules. mischievous and was always punished for talking What are the difficulties or for playing the fool. of working as an artist in China today? Do you hope that your Whether you work in China children become artists? or outside of China, artists No. It’s a difficult career, and must bear in mind who they they must be prepared to are and what they do. If they be beggars. You have to be lose the spirit of exploration exceptionally good in order and the ability to express to feed yourself. themselves, they will meet with How did your interest in great difficulties. The difference Buddhism start? between the past and now When I was a young artist in is that because of commer- Beijing, I listened to two types cialization, many artists have of music: rock ’n’ roll and lost their creativity, judgment, Buddhist music. I liked and faith and their soul. Western rock ’n’ roll, bands You said earlier: “You such as Nirvana, Pink Floyd, reach a point where you and U2. The music made me are concerned with the feel alive, but at the same big questions: Where are 73 time, you can’t constantly be we going? Where do we living in a state of climax, come from?” How do you because you will die. So I see your work evolving listened to Buddhist music to to address these questions? rest and to be quiet. My works show humankind’s In your 2011 exhibition memory, happiness, birth “Q Confucius,” you placed and death, faith, and our the influential scholar in brutish nature. We live in an a series of ambiguous era full of loneliness, anxiety, settings, including as a and hopelessness now. gigantic statue in water Humankind may evolve, but and as a robot in a cage it is helpless against this. with monkeys. What I hope to make people pay is your view of Confucian attention to themselves and philosophy? their environments. Confucius has more than You have a factory that 2,500 years of influence on stretches across 20 we all need a bigger perspective, right?” He pauses. China. He is involved in buildings in Shanghai’s “Sometimes for the big institutions and their big Chinese history every step of outskirts, employing about retrospectives of my work, I don’t even go to the opening. the way. With this exhibition, 100 assistants to help You reach the point where you are concerned with the I wanted to ask: At this point, realize your works.