ZHANG XIAOGANG 张晓刚
b.1958; lives and works
in Beijing, China
Zhang Xiaogang was born in 1958 in Kunming, Yunnan. He graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 1982 and majored in oil painting. He currently lives and works in Beijing.
Zhang’s practice constantly interrogates the ideas of constructed identity and fabricated memory. Through narrative scenes, his paintings, rooted in personal experience and memory, articulate perception, stories, and emotions. He reorganizes and juxtaposes images from history and perception, collective memories, and personal reminiscences, actively bringing the past into the present.
Since the 1990s, Zhang has employed flinty, restrained, and daydreamy visual language to convey collective psychological memories and emotions characteristic of the times. This paradoxical presentation and mimesis of society, the collective, the individual, as well as family and blood relations, serve as a reinterpretation from the perspectives of art, emotion, and life, which holds strong contemporary significance and encapsulates the local contexts in the realm of the contemporary art.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
Sao Paulo Biennial, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1994
Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 1995
Asia Pacific Triennial, Queensland, Australia, 1996
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SF, USA
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, USA
Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea, 2000
Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
M+ Art Museum, Hong Kong, China
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Louis Vuitton Art Center, Paris, France
Taikang Art Museum, Beijing, China
West Bund Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
Xihai Art Museum, Qingdao, China
Star Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China
Song Art Museum, Beijing, China
Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, China
Powerlong Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Ulsan Art Museum, Ulsan, South Korea
Pingshan Art Museum, Shenzhen, China
Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere, Finland
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia
Daegu Art Museum, Daegu, South Korea
Prague City Art Museum, Prague, Czech Republic
Today Art Museum, Beijing, China
Long Museum, Shanghai, China
Kunming Contemporary Art Museum, Kunming, China
Fosun Art Center, Chengdu, China
Wuhan United Art Museum, Wuhan, China
Hubei Art Museum, Wuhan, China
Description: 2005-20 《描述：2005-20》, 2005
White ink and oil on color photograph
40 x 50 cm | 15.75 x 19.5 in
Description: 2005-20 《描述：2005-20》, 2005
Framed: 51 x 61 cm | 20 x 24 in
Description: 2005-26 《描述：2005-26》, 2005
White ink and oil on color photograph
40 x 50 cm | 15.75 x 19.5 in
Description: 2005-26 《描述：2005-26》, 2005
Framed: 51 x 61 cm | 20 x 24 in
Description: 2005-14 《描述：2005-14》, 2005
White ink and oil on color photograph
40 x 50 cm | 15.75 x 19.5 in
Description: 2005-26 《描述：2005-26》, 2005
Framed: 51 x 61 cm | 20 x 24 in
Description: 2005-43 《描述：2005-43》, 2005
White ink and oil on color photograph
40 x 50 cm | 15.75 x 19.5 in
Description: 2005-43 《描述：2005-43》, 2005
Framed: 51 x 61 cm | 20 x 24 in