Powerful and striking, Zhang Huan's photographic images of his performances can be seen as metaphors for the human condition. In his art, which brings together aspects of dance and theater, the naked human body becomes as a vehicle to communicate with others about his experience of the world, both physical and spiritual, and to express the freedom he has found in America. Roberta Smith, writing in "The New York Times," described his work as "an elegant form of endurance art: efficient, sometimes offhand, occasionally witty. It is legible without being derivative and unfamiliar without being exotic. Heady, yet grounded."

Zhang Huan first became recognized in the United States for his photographs and a live performance in the 1998 exhibition "Inside Out: New Art From China," seen at P.S. 1 in Long Island City, New York, and at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in California. His work's mixture of elegance and brutality appeared in large, full-color close-ups of his own face dripping with soap bubbles, in which his open mouth contains little snapshots of his family, and suggested images of birth. Other powerful images include self-portrait photos in which he wears the bloody rib cage of a recently slaughtered pig; or of the artist lying naked, face down, on large cakes of ice covering the surface of a traditional Chinese bed, to which a group of dogs were attached with a piece of rope.

In "My America," seen at Deitch Projects in New York in the spring of 2000, he showed photographs and a video based on a 1999 performance at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, where he constructed a huge scaffold and put on a performance with 56 naked volunteers, a group of Americans mingling all sorts of ages and backgrounds. The artist gave them a set of twelve simple instructions to follow, so that together they performed, nude, a series of actions and rituals--lying face down and motionless on the floor, or praying in the lotus position, or acting and sounding like animals. The performance closed with the participants throwing chunks of bread, like manna from heaven, at the artist, squatting impassively in front of his scaffolding.

Structured, rigorous, sculptural, his "Family Tree" series focuses on large-scale, color close-ups of the artist's face. With their frontality, immediacy, and unflinching honesty, they express his insights about human life, suggesting that even at birth, our personal history is within us, that our destiny is already determined, already written, impossible to change or erase. "The face, gradually covered by current culture, is turning black," explains the artist. "It is impossible to take away your inborn blood and personality. The shadow walks suddenly from early morning to late night, from the first cry of a baby to white-haired old age, standing lonely in front of the window looking at, and eventually peeping into the world, reminiscing about an illusory life."

This new series was also inspired by the artist's growing awareness of physical fragility. "I have been feeling pain in my left chest for over a year," he says, "and it seems to be aggravated lately. I sense an ill omen, and am afraid that something unpredictable might happen. In my serial self-portraits I discovered a world forgotten by Rembrandt. I am trying to extend his ephemera."