Zhang Dali: Society’s Shadow
di // pubblicato il 07 Novembre, 2011
Finally the author of the physionomic outlines I saw all around Beijing from taxi’s windows has a name: Zhang Dali.
Profiles made of spray paint on buildings destined for scrapping, freeway bridges and neglected walls constitute one of the first graffiti form ever seen in a Chinese city. The same graffiti wouldn’t be so clearly visible in any western city because they would be covered by other signs made by vandals, artists or politics groups; but since what primped Beijing are only notices informing you about some prohibition or posters advertising eccentric physical variations and vintage venereal disease remedies, these profiles can come out in their peculiarity.
Near the widespread character chai (拆), sign of forthcoming destruction, we find human profiles a little bit naïve and simple which doesn't allow any distraction but create a blunt and sincere dialogue with Beijing, where buildings fall down faster then in Berlin and in London during the war.
With a Central Academy of Fine Arts Degree and a particular talent in ink painting, Zhang Dali chose to turn away from traditional way of painting on paper or canvas just to test different and more abstract forms and materials. Clearly the graffiti mode answer to the will of a critic dialogue on the changing city’s aspect.
In this way his art of memory becomes a way of resisting destruction and demanding a re-orientation of social priorities.
A complete immersion in the contemporary society couldn’t prescind from the conditions of the rural population, the most considerable part of the Chinese demographic portion.
According to the artist, immigrant workers who have traveled from the rural areas all over China to earn a living in construction sites in Chinese cities, are the most important members of the Chinese race: despite of this, they are the faceless crowd who live at the bottom of society.
“Chinese Offspring” is one of his most well known work. From 2003 to 2005, Zhang has portrayed one hundred immigrant workers in life-size resin sculptures of various postures, with a designated number, the artist signature and the whole work’s title tattooed onto each of their bodies. This kind of condition seems to be linked to a cataloguing purport, by virtue of the will of a human being controlled management.
Most of the sculptures are hung upside down, indicating the uncertainty of their life and their powerlessness in changing their own fates.
The human being, composed of flesh and mind, is again the protagonist of the series “World’s Shadows” (right now at Pekin Fine Art Gallery in Beijing until 8th of january 2012), realized between 2009 and 2011.
The new backing experimentation is here expressed at an umpteenth power, because what we see is a photographic process made up 150 years ago: cyanotypia.
The starting point is the cotton canvas immersion in a recipe of chemicals; after drying the fabric, images placed in front of it are captured in silhouette and within a few minutes of exposure to the sun’s ray negative images or shadows start to form. Areas not exposed to light remain white, while those exposed to the light result in different tones of blue.
Shadows are charming. Besides shadow’s ability to prove the existence of material object, they also carry their own intrinsic value and existence, not only as a reproduction or copy of the world of material things, but also as a type of “anti-matter” marking the physical boundaries that the object has.
Like any photographic photogram, the subject on it is destined to last forever, resisting time consumption just to become an abiding mark of transient space and time.
The belief that the few bits of nature remained in the city will be blasted very soon by undifferentiated and unfriendly cement monsters, made Zhang aware to the need of locking human beings, daily objects and the peace of his Heiqiao studio's garden inside a sort of temporal limbo.
In the northern outskirts of Beijing -in Changping County- a Liao Dynasty (907-1125) site of pagodas became the main character of this ancient photographic impression. The shadow that tries to elude the sight, hiding beside its copy, is here forever blocked.
In the fool environmental and social rush in which everything seems temporary, Zhang Dali’s art become an anchor, the memories from which start to rebuild in the future what is in our present and what will become our recent past.
Hoping this short interview can stimulate the desire of knowing a little bit more about Zhang Dali creative parabola, I integrally report an hindsight conversation between me and the artist:
We could define your art as something social. Do you think that the complexity of Chinese society which appears from your works is making your art a sort of exorcism against contemporary themes?
“Every works of mine spring from current reality, so my art could be defined realist. I want to express what is happening and what is going to happen around me. Sometimes it is really hard to express everything I want because is quite impossible to describe everyone I have around me; so I think my art could be better defined as the result of a balance between the reality of the crowd and the intellectual elaboration of it. Maybe this is what my art is all about”.
In your “Chinese Offspring” or in the series “World’s Shadows” human beings looks like experimental animals. Do you consider yourself as an anthropologist “scientifically” artist?
“Yes we can say so. None of my works come from an abstract or a sudden inspiration, all works are long-term projects; some of them took 5 or 6 years. Besides a great deal of discipline and strictness, the realization of my projects implies to become an expert in a specific technique and I think this is the most difficult thing for an artist, who everytime must explore a new and unknown world.
Only overcoming these problems the artist can find the right medium to express what is only in his mind. It is really important to match technique and content and for this reason my art works are lab products, created after loads of tests”.
Do you think that sooner or later you will look to your cyanotypes with nostalgia, due to the fact that the present China sooner will disappear?
“Yes. I’m a person without native’s roots (meiyou guxiang de ren 没有故乡的人). Nostalgia toward something that no longer exist is a permanent state of mind for Chinese people. My shadows prove that in this world some things exist and don't exist at the same time. Cyanotypes are a wonderful artistic expressions and what we find on the canvas is something that lasts forever, but while you are creating one of this you cannot know in advance what will come out, because shadows often change. With this series I would like to say that all around us is full of things we don’t see, but anyway they are fundamental for our lives”.
By now your international success is definitely proved. How much of “Non Chinese” is there in your work?
“I don’t know. I really don’t know if the current China is the real one. What is now China is quite difficult to define. When I create my works I don’t think about this problem at all. I just use every single medium I can, both material and psychical, ideas and concepts. Whether the results are something Chinese or not, this can be judged just by the person who is looking at them”.