Buddhism inspiration
By admin on 2015-01-12

Once the most active Chinese performance artist in the international art scene, Zhang Huan gained worldwide recognition with his sensational, sometimes even masochistic performances. Recently he has turned his focus to other means of expression, including installation, sculpture and painting and has created a new medium - incense ash - to make works in a more peaceful way.

Zhang's latest exhibition entitled Free Tiger Returns to Mountains, currently underway at Pace Beijing's grand exhibition halls, is among one of his achievements since he returned to China five years ago, after spending several years living and working overseas.

Due to run until July 20, dozens of paintings are on display at the exhibition, with various images of Manchurian tigers indistinctly visible through gray incense ash and black linen. All of the tigers, either pictured by themselves, or two or three together, appear to be enjoying their freedom in the jungle.

Through depicting a range of tigers in their natural environment, the series of paintings reflects the artist's concerns about current issues in China such as tiger protection and makes further exploration into people's mindsets in a fast-developing society.

"It is not only the tiger, but all we humans should return our own 'mountains'," the artist told the Global Times. "While Manchurian tigers are facing the problem of extinction, humans are also going through their own crisis, I mean mentally."

The media of incense ash indicates one of Zhang's personal artistic solutions to the two situations. In Zhang's eyes, mercy and peace, the two main ideals of Buddhism, can solve both problems, because with mercy from humans, not only tigers but all precious creatures can survive. Furthermore, with peacefulness in our minds, nothing can disturb us from being happy.

Zhang came across the special painting material in 2005, while visiting Jing'an Temple in Shanghai. Seeing people lighting their incense sticks and uttering their wishes reverently, Zhang said he was deeply moved by the scene that was full of tranquility.

He then thought of the possibility of creating art with incense ash.

"Incense ash carries all of the best wishes from prayers," Zhang said. "I think it reveals the essence of Buddhism and also the nature of humans, that is, good and honesty deeply buried in everybody's heart."

Curator of the exhibition Leng Lin said that Zhang's incense-ash paintings are a return to human nature. "He used modest, simple and natural materials in response to the confusion brought by the complex nature of society," Leng explained.

Some other works on display at the exhibition also reflect the artist's fascination toward Buddhism. Aside from incense-ash paintings, several sculptural images of Buddha's face made of animal skins are on show.

Here a sense of divine serenity and animal-like rawness are combined, adding a special strength to the Buddha himself. By combing the powers of Buddhism and animals, the artist explores the relationship between human belief and nature.

All of the works on display were created in Zhang's large art studio in Shanghai, a center that he created when returning to China.

With more than 100 employees, the center is the largest contemporary art studio in China and is operated like a modern company. It is often compared to a business by art critics and experts and has come under frequent criticism for being too commercial, which some say contradicts the spirit of artistic creation.

However, Zhang never takes such criticisms into consideration, saying that he will enlarge his company-like studio in the next few years and would like to expand to other cities and countries.

Although Zhang said he would never do performance art again, the giant studio itself is often considered as one of his biggest performance pieces to date.

"This is a genius artist," commented art lover Wang Wei. "He also does something that you can't even imagine."

Zhang's studio has been compared to Pop art master Andy Warhol's artistic spirit, in terms of treating commercialization through a self-commercialized way. "

Why care so much about other's opinion?" Zhang asked. "Anyway, I'm doing my art in my own way."

Zhang is known for pushing the boundaries in the art world, invited to stage his performance art in several prestigious museums and art galleries around the world, his work saw him lock himself in a metal box with only a slit for air and he had himself hung from the ceiling with a metal chain, his blood dripping down onto an iron plate.

One of his more moderate pieces was To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain, with which he and nine other artists climbed a mountain near Beijing, stripped naked and lay down on top of one another to create a second mountain peak.