Zhang Jian-Jun, First Drop of Water #6, Chinese Ink, Oil Paint, Acrylic, Rice Paper on Canvas, 250 x 170 cm, 2015
Zhang Jian-Jun, born in Shanghai in 1955, graduated with an Oil Painting major in the Fine Arts Department, Shanghai Theatre Academy. He became the Assistant Director and Director of the Art Research Department of the Shanghai Art Museum in 1986, and has been a professor at New York University in New York and Shanghai. He now lives and works in both New York and Shanghai.
Zhang Jian-Jun has always focused on time, process, tradition and the present, and the blending and evolution of different cultures in his decades of artwork, thus forming his unique artistic style. His works cover a range of different mediums, including interactive installations, performance art, photography, sculpture, and painting. Inspired by traditional Chinese culture, Zhang Jian-Jun's works incorporate a deep understanding of oriental culture into the vocabulary of contemporary art, freely shifting between concrete and abstract forms to holistically express his views on mankind, the universe, nature and time.
Zhang Jian-Jun’s artworks have been widely exhibited in art museums, art centers, and galleries around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, San Francisco Asian Art Museum, Venice Biennale in Italy, the Royal Academy of Art in London, the K11 Art Foundation Museums, the China National Art Museum, the Shanghai Art Museum Biennale, etc., and are in the collections of internationally renowned public and private institutions such as the Ahmanson Center for Contemporary Art in California, the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Uli Sigg collection, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, M+ Museum in Hong Kong, and the Power Station of Art in Shanghai, etc.