ZHANG JIANJUN (BORN 1955) Fire and Water, 1992ZHANG JIANJUN (BORN 1955)Fire and Water, 1992Ink, water and fire on paper, mounted, framed and glazed, inscribed by the artist in pencil, signed Jian Jun Zhang, 92, followed by the Chinese character Zhang. 29 1/2 x 22in (75 x 56cm)張健君（生於1955年） 水·火 水墨火紙本 鏡框 一九九二年作款識：Jian Jun Zhang 92. 張Provenance:Chambers Fine Art, New YorkExhibition:Variations of Ink--A Dialogue with Zhang Yanyuan; Chambers Fine Art, New York, 15 May- 29 June 2002來源：紐約前波畫廊展覽：《水墨变奏曲》，紐約前波畫廊，2002年5月15日至6月29日Zhang Jianjun is born in 1955 in Shanghai. He studied oil painting at the Department of Fine Arts at Shanghai Theatre Academy and graduated in 1978. Thereafter he worked at the Shanghai Art Museum and became its first director of the Curatorial and Art Research Department. He visited New York in 1980s for curatorial programs and started to practice abstract painting, experimenting on artworks of mixed media. In 1990s, he advanced into the fields of conceptual and performance art. A main focus of his works is the relationship between traditional Chinese concepts and the contemporary culture.The exhibition that the present lot was involved was curated by the renowned art historian and curator Wu Hung, with an intention to explore the unknown expressive possibilities of the traditionally venerable medium of ink by divorcing it from "brush." As he mentioned in the preface, "an important change in ink painting took place in the 80s... instead of approaching ink simply as a medium for painting, an increasing number of younger artists began to treat ink itself as a subject of artistic experimentation."