ZHANG HUAN (b.1965) Untitled, 2006ZHANG HUAN (b.1965)Untitled, 2006Ink on paper, framed. 119cm long x 80cm wide (46 3/4in long x 31 1/2in wide).張洹（1965年生） 無題 水墨紙本 鏡框 2006年作Provenance: Galerie Volker Diehl, BerlinSotheby's Hong Kong, 4 April 2016, lot 581 (part lot)Published, Illustrated and Exhibited: Chinese Ink Paintings Now, New York, 2010, p.234.來源：Galerie Volker Diehl, 柏林香港蘇富比，2016年4月4日，拍品編號581（部分拍品）Zhang Huan was born in Anyang, Henan Province in 1965. He is an internationally recognised artist whose versatility is evident in performance, photography, sculpture, and installation.After graduating from Henan University, Kaifeng, and teaching art and art history for three years, Zhang moved to Beijing in 1991. He studied oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Actively involved in the avant-garde while living in the famous Beijing East Village, a dilapidated cluster of houses inhabited by young artists in the early 1990s, Zhang moved away from classical art in 1992 and started his signature performances that explore how the body could be a material for art. He continued his performances involving feats of endurance after he moved to New York in 1998 and soon earned international recognition. A survey exhibition was held in New York at Asia Society in 2008.Since moving to Shanghai in 2006 and opening a large studio, Zhang Huan has also explored the possibilities of ink, which he had studied in college. His works in ink and acrylic, or simply ink on paper are visual metaphors of a persistent theme in all of his art, namely the question of the nature of reality and the power of culture. In one untitled work of 2006, for instance, the face of a naked male figure, almost submerged in water, is obliterated by blotches of ink and a horse is placed on his shoulders. It is another example of Zhang Huan's interpretation of the body as a tool which can amplify one's understanding of life; see U.Grosenick and C.H.Schubbe, China Artbook, Cologne, 2007, pp.595-599.