The Rhetoric of the Contemporary Figure: The Works of Zhang Peili

Zhang Peili, an active participant in the avant-garde art movement of the 1980s, is also one of China’s earliest experimental artists to employ video media. His practice spans early painting, performance, and installation, later evolving to focus on moving images and video installations. Renowned for his conceptual depth, his works persistently interrogate the living conditions and subjectivity of contemporary individuals through rhetorical enigmas. This lecture examines Zhang Peili’s artistic creations from the mid-1980s to the present, analyzing the language and concepts in his works to explore the relationship between his art and the times through perspectives such as the traumatized individual, the corporeal being, and the subject shaped by institutional structures.