Father and Daughter by Zhang Xiaogang

Zhang Xiaogang, Father and Daughter, 2024, oil on canvas with paper collage 160 cm × 200 cm (63" × 78-3/4") © Zhang Xiaogang

Zhang Xiaogang

Portrait of Zhang Xiaogang

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b. 1958, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China

Zhang Xiaogang is recognized for his figurative paintings and sculptures that navigate the cultural terrain of contemporary China and question notions of identity and the construction of memory.

Zhang came to prominence in the 1990s amid a new generation of artists known as the 85 New Wave, a movement that proposed a radical break from the predominance of Socialist Realism. Zhang built his early practice upon his interests in Western innovations of modern and postmodern painting and theory, producing a unique aesthetic vocabulary through which he explores complex themes based on personal and collective experience.

Intent on pursuing an artistic career, Zhang attended the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing, from 1977 through 1982. Although the institute’s program adhered to Socialist Realism, Zhang’s studies coincided with the end of the Cultural Revolution, giving him gradual exposure to Impressionism and Expressionism. He became particularly influenced by Vincent van Gogh, whose work informed his production of expressionistic paintings; however, this style was not readily accepted among Zhang’s teachers and he was denied graduation until art critic and curator Li Xianting intervened with his support. Met with an institutional resistance toward modern art, Zhang initially made concessions in his work, tempering his expressionist style with bucolic subject matter in order to participate in the Advancing Chinese Youth Fine Arts Exhibition at The National Art Museum of China, Beijing (1984). Zhang became increasingly interested in Western art and philosophy as his work revealed a Surrealist influence in the form of skeletal figures and disembodied heads. He also began to experiment with media by spraying, scraping, and rubbing paint on cardboard, first seen in his Lost Dreams series (1986–1988).

During this period, avant-garde approaches in art began to flourish throughout China. In response to the first symposium on the 85 New Wave movement, held in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province (1986), Zhang co-founded the Southwest Art Group with Mao Xuhui, Pan Dehai, and Ye Yongqing. By the end of the decade, Zhang participated in the group exhibition China/Avant-Garde at The National Art Museum of China in Beijing (1989), which featured artists from across the country and was followed by his first one-artist exhibition, Lost in the Dreams, held at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute Art Museum, China (1989).

Visiting Europe in 1992 at the invitation of the University of Kassel, Zhang traveled throughout Germany and to Amsterdam and Paris. During this time, he attended Documenta and visited museums, seeing in person works by historic and contemporary Western artists who had inspired him. After three months, he returned to China, reinvigorated with his identity as a contemporary Chinese artist and a desire to explore his own history through painting. He participated in the Guangzhou Biennial (1992), exhibiting a pair of allegorical paintings, Genesis—Birth of a Republic No. 1 and No. 2 (1992), comprised of collaged photographic images and oil paint on canvas. Shortly thereafter, Zhang’s style shifted in Bloodline (1993–2010), a series of paintings inspired by photographs and based on his investigation of individual, familial, and cultural identity.

The Bloodline series, which features a grisaille palette punctuated by vibrant pink, red, yellow, green, or blue hues, was a breakthrough in Zhang’s career. In 1994, he received his first one-artist exhibition in Europe, held at the Galerie de France, Paris. The same year, he exhibited work from this series at the Bienal de São Paulo (1994), followed by another presentation in the Venice Biennale (1995). Zhang’s Bloodline series has since become a touchstone in his oeuvre, with its themes of past and present time emerging again in his Amnesia and Memory paintings (2003–) and later developing into sculpture (2007–).

Zhang’s work has been featured in over two hundred group exhibitions, including the Guangzhou Biennial, China (1992); Bienal de São Paulo (1994); Venice Biennale (1995); Asia–Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Australia (1997); Gwangju Biennale, Korea (2000); Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2001); Chengdu Biennial, China (2001); Guangzhou Triennial, China (2002, 2005); Shanghai Biennale (2004); and the Changsha Biennale, China (2011). Recent group exhibitions include Metamorphosis: Huang Zhuan Memorial Invitational Exhibition, OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shenzhen (2017); Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2017); Practice and Exchange, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2018); A Fairy Tale in Red Times: Works from the White Rabbit Collection, The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2019); Conversations: Contemporary Asian Art, Hermitage Museum & Gardens, Norfolk, Virginia (2019); Duration: Chinese Art in Transformation, Beijing Minsheng Art Museum (2020); 2021 Beyond, TAG Art Museum, Qingdao, China (2021–2022); Art and Peace: Let us begin again from Zero o’clock, Ulsan Art Museum, South Korea (2022); Multiple Sights: The Tenth Anniversary of the Long Museum, Long Museum, Shanghai (2022–2023); and Twenty Years of Iteration, Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art (2023–2024), which is currently on view.

Since 1989, Zhang has been the subject of over twenty-five one-artist exhibitions. Recent museum exhibitions include The China Project: Zhang Xiaogang—Shadows in the Soul, which opened at the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia (2009), and traveled to Sichuan Fine Arts Institute Art Museum, China (2010), 16:9, at the Today Art Museum, Beijing (2010); and Memory + ing, at the Daegu Art Museum, South Korea (2014); Stage, Hubei Provincial Museum,, China (2018); Multiple Narratives, United Art Museum, Wuhan, China (2018); Zhang Xiaogang: Mayflies, Long Museum, Shanghai (2023).

Zhang’s work is held in public collections worldwide, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Dongyu Museum of Fine Arts, Shenyang, China; Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan; He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China; International Conference Center, Hong Kong; M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong; Musée de Picardie, Amiens, France; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum, Japan; Peter Stuyvesant Foundation, Amsterdam; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Shanghai Art Museum; and the Shenzhen Museum, Guangdong China.

Zhang Xiaogang has been represented by Pace since 2008. Focused exhibitions of his work at the gallery include Revision (2008); The Records (2009); Beijing Voice (2012); Zhang Xiaogang: Oil on Paper (2014); Sol LeWitt and Zhang Xiaogang (2016); Recent Works (2018); and Zhang Xiaogang: Lost (2023).

Boy No 1 (With Hands) by Zhang Xiaogang

Zhang Xiaogang, Boy No 1 (With Hands), 2015, painted bronze, 23-1/2" × 11-3/4" × 10-1/2" (59.7 cm × 29.8 cm × 26.7 cm) © Zhang Xiaogang

Light No.11 by Zhang Xiaogang

Zhang Xiaogang, Light No.11, 2023, oil on canvas, 150 cm × 120 cm (59-1/16" × 47-1/4") © Zhang Xiaogang

Bath by Zhang Xiaogang
Role No. 12 by Zhang Xiaogang

Zhang Xiaogang, Role No. 12, 2021, oil on canvas with paper collage, 200 cm × 100 cm (78-3/4" × 39-3/8") © Zhang Xiaogang

Jump No. 2 by Zhang Xiaogang

Zhang Xiaogang, Jump No. 2, 2018, oil on paper with paper collage, 197 cm × 85 cm (77-9/16" × 33-7/16") © Zhang Xiaogang

Light No. 6 by Zhang Xiaogang

Zhang Xiaogang, Light No. 6, 2022, oil on canvas, 200 cm × 260 cm (78-3/4" × 8' 6-3/8") © Zhang Xiaogang