Introduction

Zhang Ding, born in 1980 in Gansu Province, based in Shanghai. Zhang Ding is one of the most active and influential Chinese artists in the international art sphere. For more than a decade, Zhang Ding is known for creating large-scale sculptures, installations and videos, and also for periodically curating live events that are musical and performative in nature, collaborating with artists from all fields.

Zhang Ding's large-scale installations are unitary and integral: the meticulous structures combining the artist’s favourite motifs and formal elements assimilate various components together into an architectonic entity. From a New Brutalist gesture that locks down a museum space in Shanghai, turning it into a “prison”; to a conceptual and physical staircase between different project spaces in downtown Beijing; to a series of impromptu gigs over a period of fortnight at the ICA London, inviting bands and musicians to improvise one next to another, compressing and distorting sounds, images and spaces, Zhang Ding presents and deals with live processes and experiences in a thorough and novel fashion.

Zhang Ding is the 2015 TANC Asia Prize Winner and 2017 Porsche Young Chinese Artist of the Year Prize Winner.

Recent solo exhibitions and projects include Zhang Ding & Teppei Kaneuji: Two Clubs, How Art Museum, Shanghai (2023); CON TROL CLUB, Fosun Foundation, Shanghai (2020); High-Speed Forms, OCAT, Shanghai (2019); Safe House, Beijing (2018); Vortex, ShanghART, Shanghai (2017); CON TROL CLUB, Launch Project, Shanghai (2016); Devouring Time, RAM, Shanghai (2016); Enter the Dragon II, Chi K11 Art Museum, Shanghai (2016); Enter the Dragon, ICA London, U.K. (2015); Orbit of Rock, ShanghART, Beijing (2014); Orbit: Zhang Ding Solo Project, The Armory Show - Focus Section, New York, U.S.A. (2014); Gold & Silver, Galerie Krinzinger, Wien, Austria (2013); etc. Major group exhibitions include Chinese Summer, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway (2017); Meanwhile… Suddenly, and Then, the Biennale of Lyon, France (2013); Moving on Asia, Towards a New Art Network 2004-2013, City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand (2013); Perspectives 180 - Unfinished Country: New Video from China, The Contemporary Art Museum in Houston, U.S.A. (2012); China Power Station (series exhibition), Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway; National Art Museum, Luxembourg; etc. (2007-2010).