Zhang Dali

Zhang Dali (born 1963, Harbin, China) is an artist based in Beijing.

Zhang trained at the Beijing Central Academy of Art & Design. After studying painting in China, he went to Italy, where he discovered graffiti art. He was the only graffiti artist in Beijing throughout the early 1990s, and is the first artist since Keith Haring and Jackson Pollock to be given the cover of Time magazine.

From 1995 to 1998 he spray-painted over 2000 giant profiles of his own bald head on buildings throughout Beijing, placing the images alongside 'chai' characters painted by the city authorities to indicate that a building is scheduled for demolition.Anne-Marie Broudehoux, The Making and Selling of Post-Mao Beijing, Routledge, 2004, pp221-2. ISBN 0415320577Wu Hung in Carol Appadurai Breckenridge, Cosmopolitanism, Duke University Press, 2002, p189. ISBN 0822328992

He has shown work internationally in many exhibitions including the International Center for Photography in New York, 18Gallery in Shanghai, Magda Danysz Gallery in Paris, Courtyard Gallery in Beijing, Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo and the 2006 Gwangju Biennale in Korea. He is represented by Kiang Gallery in Atlanta, Eli Klein Fine Art in New York and Base Gallery in Tokyo

Zhang Dali has portrayed 100 immigrant workers in life-size resin sculptures of various postures,...
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