Zhang Huan - United States Works
I am so sorry to be posting this so late, but this was literally the first opportunity I have had in the past couple days to write this. I’ve been having a lot of computer trouble, but now everything seems to be working fine. Anyway…
Zhang Huan is an incredible artist that until now I really did not know about. Performance art is not something that I have ever really understood and at this point I still don’t. i can however appreciate any type of art, since art really has no true definition. Anything can be art, as long as the piece has some significance to the artist. Whether or not someone else understands the piece doesn’t matter as the intention behind it. With this said, there was one piece of art that really stood out to me from Zhang Huan’s collection. One of the pieces, Pilgrimage, really made me think about what he wanted to achieve which I enjoyed doing immensely.
I watched the performance take place, and immediately I was skeptical. I thought this was going to be a ridiculous romp through this crazy man’s mind with nothing too substantial to help us understand what he wanted us to. I found myself absentmidedly looking at him throwing his body on the hard ground, with dogs barking, and chinese traditional bed in the middle of the “stage.” That’s when it cam to me; this was all about tradition. He wanted us, his viewers, to bring tradition into question. Dogs are traditionally not kept as pets in China and instead are eaten. Traditional Chinese beds are hard and uncomfortable. And I realized that he was throwing himself on the round to try and rid himself of these preconceived notions of what he should and should not do. The dogs barking are constant reminder of what traditions have been in the past and what they are in the present. Both Chinese and American culture have these ideas about certain standards that just aren’t as well received in other places. What Zhang Huan wanted us to see, at least from my point of view, is the clashing of these traditions and how painful this collision can be. When he lay on the bed, ice covering its entirety, he showed exactly how painful tradition in any culture can be and just how hard it is to accept other people’s traditions. Completely nude, he was vulnerable, exposing his views to everyone and allowing everyone to them. There seems as thugh he believes hope is lost completely for people to live in harmony with these radically different views, but then the dogs’ owners come and comfort them, easing the barking down so they are safe. This simple act gives so much hope, it was overwhelming. I felt as if this huge weight had been lifted off of me and I could finally breathe easily again. I felt as though something positive could come from all this grief, but i still somehow felt this would not come easily. Every culture would put up a fight before they could live together peacefully. At that moment, Zhang Huan stood up form the bed and the performance was over. It was odd to me that everyone clapped afterwards, since I was left with such an unnerving state, but I accepted it and simply took the claps in as something in the distance.
Zhang Huan’s U.S. pieces are definitely less about the people around him and more about the culture around him. He is not an American and as such, he can’t do the same pieces he does over in China. He can only use what is around him and this piece in particular was fueled by what he saw around him in America. If he hadn’t seen so many dogs in the U.S. as pets he never would have thoughtto use them. He uses what he sees, and in China that hapens to be the people that he has a deep connection with. His statements there are more for them, but his statements in America are more for himself almost, showing what he believes. In China, he is bringing forth works that mean something to everyone there while in the U.S. he is bringing forth pieces that mean something to him. Both are brilliant and whether or not someone likes them is based purely on taste. They are both intriguing and work for some people.