Review of “Zhang Huan: Ash Paintings and Performances” at Pace Gallery (Group A)

Zhang Huan: Ash Paintings and Performances at Pace Gallery exhibits Zhang Huan’s work as an immigrant from China who moved to New York and eventually returned to China. His work is divided into two sections. The first section presents Zhang Huan’s large-scale realist scenery paintings made of ash on linen. The ash collected from Buddhist temple incense burners reflects the artist’s religious faith in later years. 

The second section documents the nude performance art that made Zhang Huan famous during his years in New York. My America (Hard to Adapt) shows the artist sitting nude while sixty other nude people throw bread at him, symbolizing a new immigrant’s difficulty of adapting. Family Tree consists of nine photographs in which calligraphers write traditional names and fortune-telling words in Chinese characters on his face until his face is completely covered in ink, reflecting his inability to recognize people’s cultural identities after encountering the West. 

While nude performance art may be more acceptable in the West, it was still shocking to see it from an East Asian perspective, where people in general tend to be more conservative. It was also not easy for him to shoot these performances, for which he was repeatedly arrested for doing so, according to his biography. Yet as a first-generation Chinese immigrant, it is completely understandable to see Zhang Huan’s discomfort upon arriving in a new country; his work captures that experience vividly.