Biography

Zhang Dali, born in Harbin in 1963, enrolled at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and Design in 1983 (now Tsinghua University Institute of Fine Arts). After graduating in 1987, Zhang Dali became an eminent exponent of the first generation of independent professional artists. His first exhibition was at the Sun Yat-sen Park in 1987. Zhang’s creativity has always been focused on Chinese social reality, and from real life he extracts both the creative inspiration and the artistic expressive style.

From the ink experimentations of the 80’s to the graffiti Dialogue and Demolition, started in 1992, he accomplished to transcend from formality to the deepest level of artistic expression. From 1999, he started to use video, painting, sculpture, installation, documentary archive, and a comprehensive strategy of different means to create his artwork. From the first paragraph in the first chapter of Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughing and Forgetting Zhang Dali took inspiration for his A Second History, which consists in a meticulous investigation and classification of Chinese historical images that he organized into a documentary archive.

From 2009 on, he has researched the old technique of cyanotype, and produced the series World’s Shadows. Zhang Dali’s works have been on show in numerous important exhibitions, including several large-scale retrospectives.