| Chinese government city planners have imposed a physical and psychological revolution on their cities. In most cities of any size, old neighborhoods have been completely erased and replaced by buildings that the planners consider to be more worthy of a modern, first world nation. The erasure of traditional neighborhoods has resulted in the displacement of communities and in the disruption of a long-standing neighborhood structure. Add to this a greater freedom of movement for individuals within China, as well as the lure of jobs in the construction of these new cities, and the result is a constant reshaping of lives and the creation of new social classes. |  |
Zhang Dali – Julia Colman
Chinese government city planners have imposed a physical and psychological revolution on their cities. In most cities of any size, old neighborhoods have been completely erased and replaced by buildings that the planners consider to be more worthy of a modern, first world nation. The erasure of traditional neighborhoods has resulted in the displacement of communities and in the disruption of a long-standing neighborhood structure. Add to this a greater freedom of movement for individuals within China, as well as the lure of jobs in the construction of these new cities, and the result is a constant reshaping of lives and the creation of new social classes.
Accordingly, all artists’ work in these places are socially involved, to some degree, as they cannot extricate themselves completely from their social surroundings, and especially not from the context of contemporary China. Nevertheless, there are artists who make a point of making social issues the raison d’etre of their work. Zhang Dali is one such artist, keen to make his compatriots aware of the less glamorous elements of this great social upheaval.
Having a studio on the outskirts of Beijing, Zhang Dali became acquainted with a community of migrant workers who lived nearby. These migrant workers have emerged as a product of the urbanization and growth of the main Chinese cities. This class of people did not exist 25-odd years ago. Most people were born, lived and died in the same village or town in which their livelihood was decided by the local government. Mobility has come with reform and this is not always an easy choice for the individual or for the family. The cities have developed into places of wealth and opportunity, thus drawing all sorts of people in search of better lives. However, with this growth of the Chinese cities and with the introduction of so much from the West: architecture, food, fashion, social manners, etc., great uncertainty has also been introduced. For the migrant worker, uncertainty is one of the key elements of existence. Zhang Dali wanted to bring these people and their hard, bitter lives to the attention of others and decided to do so by creating head and body casts of volunteers from among these groups as well as painting their portraits in his “AK-47” series. The technique employed—of casting the entire body—captures, in intimate detail, each person, thus transmitting an intense feeling of a full individual—a real person, "warts and all"—as opposed to each model being just one member of a nameless and faceless mass of workers. These sculptures are far less beautiful than the “AK-47” paintings. There is little distance between the work of art and the model, and, thus, no chance for any form of idealism. One can’t alter the nature of these bodies. Zhang Dali, accordingly, feels great sympathy for these people. He explains that they could just as well be himself or his own relatives. If you laugh at these figures, then you are laughing at your own kind.
The presentation of the body casts is vital to transmitting the artist’s message. In this show, they are shown hanging upside down from ropes tied around their ankles. The imagery is shocking: hanging like carcasses of meat, in mid-air, in limbo. The artist uses the Chinese "dao xuan" to express being upside down in limbo without any strength to turn their bodies. These works capture the spirit, or lack thereof, of these workers. For Zhang Dali, his sculptures are living taxonomy, a human version of insect samples ("biao ben"), except that the specimens are live people. It is a documentation of the species at a specific moment in history. In another time the bodies would be different. The material used for the body casts has a ghost like quality. Its dull whiteness is lifeless. The fact that these are casts and not sculptures made from a model also heightens the eerie quality of the works. Portrait sculpture tends to capture a personality or an emotion while these casts capture an individual at one moment under certain conditions.
These people and the fact that Zhang Dali documents them are symbols of so many characteristics of the new urbanizing Chinese society. These people are truly offspring, Chinese offspring, the products of the new China. Whereas previously they would not have been able to travel in search of work, the opening up of their country and economy has offered opportunity and the risk associated with it. Whereas all their needs would have been seen to by their work unit or commune a few decades ago, their new independence means no such security. They are not part of any official register of inhabitants and therefore have no right to state education, health care or other benefits. They are the fringes of society. Zhang Dali uses the expression "strong and wild" to describe the situation of the migrant workers and thus is the expression of Zhang Dali’s art. If one is not moved, one cannot move others.
