Zhang Jianhua

”Very few works speak to social problems. Chinese contemporary art doesn’t make people understand. It has lost its function and its very important social, avant-garde, and revolutionary features.”- Zhang Jianhua

Zhang Jianhua is a contemporary sculptor known for being controversial. The subject of his work often involves poverty, exploitation, and death. Through his four sculptural series, Zhang brings to light many social issues China would like to forget.

Before attending the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Zhang grew up in a small village in the Henan province of China. His urge to be an artist started when a teacher praised him on his calligraphy. In his life time, he has worked as a farmer, a miner, and an artist assistant before attending university and starting his own artist career. The main body of his sculptural work reflects his own life and depicts many individuals he has come in contact with.

His first series, the Zhuangtang Village, focused on rural Chinese peasants. Using his own home town as a model, featuring actual villagers in his work, Zhang depicts the hardships facing farmers today. When asked in an interview why he sculpts peasants, Zhang replied “The problem of how to deal with the countryside is China’s most challenging social problem. I detest corruption, and peacefully use sculpture to express my contempt and to present a reality more real than reality.”

Zhang’s second series, Coal-the black Gold is about the strife of coal miners in China. To prepare for this series, Zhang visited coal mines in Henan and Shanxi provinces, working and living with miners, even experiencing a mining accident where some of his friends were injured and killed. This series includes sculptures of miners alive and dead and comments on this exploitation from miner owners as well as the public at large. Adding a performance aspect to this series, Zhang would often dress up in typical miners dress and lay with the dead miners in his installations. This performance aspect will carry onto his third series, The Night Jasmine.

After exploring farmers and miners, Zhang turned to another social problem, prostitution. As with his previous series, Zhang gives his own commentary on the often neglected issue of prostitution. Here Zhang created a complete environment with an illegal taxi in front of a store front where prostitutes are waiting inside. Further back, there are a series of rooms graphically depicting what the customers are paying for. Zhang also wrote a performance piece to accompany his installation where the actors perform on a stage mixed in with his sculptures blurring the lines of reality.

His current series, City Monument, Zhang focuses on urban development and modern philosophy and religion. Hundreds of small figure sculptures are placed within a decaying urban landscape featuring prominent Beijing architecture such as the Bird’s Nest and CCTV building.

Zhang has worked in the 798 artist district in Beijing, and his work has garnered international attention. The ChinaVine team interviewed Zhang in his studio where he is currently working on City Monument in the Song Zhuang art district outside of Beijing.