Zhang Xiao
Zhang Xiao graduated from the Department of Architecture and Design at Yantai University in 2005. Before becoming a photography artist in 2009, he was a photojournalist for Chongqing Morning Post. Zhang’s works between 2006 and 2013 often reveal his unique understanding of today’s China and a sense of surrealism that precisely capture the absurdity in the country due to rampant economic changes. The snapshot aesthetic and adoption of ordinary people from daily settings as protagonists are the common threads through his two iconic series They and Coastline. Zhang’s works from 2012 to present mark his shifting focus from the portrayal of life in contemporary China to reflections on his homecoming, and the experiences and presences that surround it. It also demonstrates the artist’s use of a wider range of media in his creative repertoire.
Zhang received the Prix HSBC pour la Photographie in 2011, and the second Hou Dengke Documentary Photography Award in 2009 with Coastline series. He also won the Three Shadows Photography Award in 2010 with They series. In 2015, Zhang participated in “The World in 2015” at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, China. His works have been exhibited extensively in photography festivals including Photoquai at Musee du Quai Branly in Paris, France (2015) and Festival Pluie d’Images in France (2013). Zhang’s works are collected by the Burger Collection; Fidelity Corporate Art Collection in USA; HSBC Foundation for Photography in France and Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in China.
Zhang currently lives and works in Chengdu, China.
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Karaoke / 2016
Zhang Xiao’s latest work Karaoke is comprised by seven old Karaoke VHS tapes from the 1990s. The artist extracted the most memorable scene from each Karaoke tape and used the frame as the label for the tape. In addition, he extracted parts of each of the seven Karaoke soundtracks which, when played simultaneously, weave a sonic landscape that reverberates with the past. “In an era isolated from excessive information, a box of cassette tape once carried a lot for us. The seemingly outdated frames and sound are mixed to revitalize the once best moments for us,” Zhang says.
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Since there is a dream / 2015
Since there is a dream (2016) presents fragments of a physical, social and cultural landscape that shifts and blurs in the mind of the mass as well as the artist. A photograph of a Tiananmen Square replica, taken by Zhang in his hometown, was installed onto souvenir wall clocks made for two long-time popular CCTV shows. The installation evokes many Chinese people’s dreams of grandeur that are symbolised by appearing on TV or having a photograph of themselves taken at Tiananmen Square. While these dreams have lost some of their glory through the eras, Zhang’s work highlights the remnants of such dreams that many Chinese still hold on to and their essential fakeness.
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Shift / 2012-15
The series is a set of instant film photographic works about his hometown, i.e. Yantai in Shandong province. The artist first copied images of landscapes and objects taken in his hometown on instant film materials, before lifting the image-bearing emulsion from the instant film and manually transferring it onto a paper. The black and white photocollage was therefore created through a delicate process of detachment and reassembly that echoes Zhang’s relationship with his hometown.
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Living / 2014-15
Living series (2014-15) is a light-hearted portrayal of the reality in today’s China. It features Zhang posing for a photo with presumably the day’s newspaper and imitating those retired elderly who, having moved away from their hometowns where the records of their household registration were made, must provide photographic proof of themselves still living to obtain their pension funds.
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Three Sisters / 2015
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Home Theater / 2015
This mixed media series draws on Zhang’s recollection of watching TV and films on VHS during his childhood, a symbol of luxury in China in the 1990s. The artist selected 6 of his favourite films and TV shows from the 1980s-1990s, and made a screen capture of the most notable scene in each film or show for the label for the VHS tape. The film soundtracks are played simultaneously alongside the exhibit, weaving an intricate web of sounds that denote the re-creation of the bygone eras.
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Eldest Sister and Relatives / 2014
These two series mark a humorous tribute to the once popular practice of “New Photography” in the rural villages of Northern China. Photo editors, whom the artist calls “travelling folk artists of image”, roamed the villages with their notebook computers and created composite portraits for the villagers. In enlarging these old photos into near life-sized portraits, Zhang resurrects the sense of aesthetics,
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Coastline / 2009-13
In the series, Zhang travelled the 18,000 kilometres of coastline of China to photograph the ordinary people’s circumstances in the most developed areas of China. His images of seaside landscape are often infiltrated with bizarre artificial objects or constructions, with people performing different types of random activities. Zhang received the Prix HSBC pour la Photographie in 2011, The Photography Talent Awards (France) in 2010, and the second Hou Dengke Documentary Photography Award in 2009 with this series.
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They / 2006-08
They series (2006-2008) won Zhang the Three Shadows Photography Award in 2010 which first gained him international attention. Taken in Chongqing, the biggest and fastest-growing city in China, the characters in They are the ordinary people in daily life – they carry out all kinds of mundane activities in public venues. In the images, these ordinary people seem departed from reality and entered a performance state. The images perhaps reveal the loss of balance and normality caused by the rapid development of modern Chinese society.
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