Introduction of the artist:

ZHANG Dali(China)

ZHANG DA LI
1963 Born in Harbin (China)
1987 Graduated from National Academy of Fine Arts and Design
Now lives and works in Beijing
Individual Exhibitions
1989 “Wash Painting Exhibition by Zhang Dali”, Gallery of the National Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China
1993 “Zhang Dali: Pitture a Inchiostro”, Galleria Studio 5, Bologna, Italy
1994 “Rivoluzione e Violenza”, Galleria Studio 5, Bologna, Italy
1999 “Dialogue and Demolition”, The Courtyard Gallery, Beijing, China
“Dialogue”, Chinese Contemporary Gallery, London, UK,
2000 “AK-47”, The Courtyard Gallery, Beijing, China
2002 “Headlines”, Chinese Contemporary Gallery, London, UK
“Beijing’s Face”, Base Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2003 “AK-47”, Galleria Gariboldi, Milan, Italy
“AK-47”, Galleria Il Traghetto, Venice, Italy,
2004 “New Works by Zhang Dali”, Chinese Contemporary Gallery, London, UK
2005 “Sublimation”, Beijing Commune Gallery, Beijing, China
2006 “Zhang Dali：A Second History”, Walsh Gallery, Chicago, USA
2007 “Chinese Offspring”, Chinese Contemporary Gallery, New York, USA
2008 “The Road to Freedom”, Red Star Gallery, Beijing, China
“Slogans”, Kiang Gallery
, Atlanta, USA
2009 “Pervasion”, He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China
“Il sogno proibito della nuova Cina”, Plazzo Inghilteraa,Turin, Italy
“The Second History”, Space SZ Gallery, Beijing, China
2010 “The Second History”, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
“Zhang Dali – Solo Show”, 18 Gallery, Shanghai, China
“Zhang Dali – Extreme Reality”, Tank Loft-Chongqing Contemporary Art Center, Chongqing, China
2011 “New Slogan”, Eli Klein Art Gallery , New York, USA
“World’s Shadows”, Pekin Fine Arts Gallery, Beijing China
Selected Group Exhibitions
1987 “Three Men Show”, Sun Yat-sen Park, Beijing, China
1989 “Wash Paiting Salon in Peking”, Capital Museum (Confucius Temple), Beijing, China
1991 “Pittura su Carta”, Galleria Comunale, Ferrara, Italy
1992 “Collettiva di artisti cinesi”, Il Sigillo Gallery, Padova, Italy
1993 “Zona Internazionale”, Neon Gallery, Bologna, Italy
“Arte Deperibile”, Spazio Cultura Navile, Bologna, Italy
1995 “La Formazione della Terra”, Goethe Institute Gallery, Torino, Italy
1997 “W 2+ Z 2- Multi-media and video Exhibition”, Gallery of the National Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China
1998 “Urbanity”, Wang Shou Temple Art Museum, Beijing, China
11th Tallinn Triennial, Tallinn Estonia
“Chinese Contemporary Photography”, Lehman College, New York, USA
“Chinese Artists Group Show”, Chinese Contemporary Gallery, London, UK
1999 “Chinese Contemporary Photography”, Bard College, New York, USA
“Unveiled Reality- Chinese Contemporary Photography”, Chulalongkom University Museum, Bangkok, Thailand
“The world is yours!” Design Museum, performance, Beijing, China
“hsin: a visible spirit”, Cypress College, California, USA
“Beijing in London”, ICA, London, UK
“Food for Thought”, Eindhoven, Holland
“Transparence Opacité?”, Aix en Provence, France and Aosta, Italy
2000 “Serendipity”, The Japan Foundation Asia Center, Tokyo, Japan
“Food as Art”, Club Vogue, Beijing, China
“Artistes Contemporains Chinois”, Musee des Tapisseries, Aix-en-Provence, France
Performance “Thought Brand Meat Mincer”, Dongsi 8 Tiao, Beijing, China
“Fuck Off”, Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai, China
2001 “Hot Pot”, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, Norway
“Contemporary Chinese Photography”, Finland Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland
“Contemporary Chinese Photography”, Oulu Art Museum, Oulu, Finland
"China Art Now", Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
“Courtyard Gallery August Group Show”, The Courtyard Gallery, Beijing, China
2002 “International Photography Festival”, Pingyao, China
“The First Guangzhou Triennial”, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
“New Photography From China”, The Courtyard Gallery, Beijing, China
2003 “Festival Internazionale di Roma”, L'Officina-Arte del Borghetto, Rome, Italy
“China-Germany Art”, Factory 798, Beijing, China
“The Logan Collection”, Denver Art Museum, Denver, USA
2004 “Me! Me! Me!”, The Courtyard Gallery, Beijing, China
“Between Past and Future”, ICP, New York, USA
“Critical Mass”, Chinese Contemporary Gallery, Beijing, China
2005 “Chinese Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition”, Museum Beelden aan Zee, Holland
“The Game of Realism”, Beijing Commune Gallery, Beijing, China
“Mayfly”, Beijing Commune Gallery, Beijing, China
“Wall”, Millennium Museum, Beijing, China
“New Photography and Video from China”, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
2006 “Great Performance”, Max Protetch, New York, USA
“Red Star”, Red Star Gallery, 798 Factory, Beijing, China
Gwangju Biennnale 6th Edition “Fever Variations”, Gwangju, South Korea
“Museum Sammlung Essl – China Now”, Klosterneuburg, Vienna, Austria
2007 “Past forward”, Oriental Vista Art Collections, Shanghai, China
“La Cina é vicina”, Mediterranea Gallery, Palermo, Italy
“Three Unitary ”, ddm, Shanghai, China,
“Red Hot”, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA
“China Now”, CoBrA Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam, Netherlands
“Unexpected – Out of Control”, Ku Art Center, Beijing, China
“All our Tomorrows: The Culture of Camuflage”, Kunstraum der Universit?t, Lüneburg, Germany
“China Now-Lost in Transition”, Eli Klein Fine Art, New York, USA
2008 “Re-Imagining Asia”, House of World Cultures, Berlin, Germany
“Go China！—Writing on the Wall”, Groninger Museum, Groninger, Netherlands
“China Gold ”, Musee Maillol, Paris, Francia
“Logan Collection”, San Francisco MOMA, San Francisco, USA
“Exquiste Corpse: China Surreal”, m97 Gallery, Shanghai, China
“Guang Hua Road”, Michael Schultz Gallery, Beijing, China
“Christian Dior & Chinese Artists”, UCCA, Beijing, China
“The Revolution Continues: New Art from China”, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
“Slogan”, Eli Klein Fine Art, New York, USA
2009 “Stairway to Heaven: From Chinese Streets to Monuments and Skyscrapers”, Art Center, Kansas City, USA
“Re-imaging Asia”, The New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK
“The very Condition”, Wall Art Museum, Beijing, China
“Images from History”, Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China
“Transforming Traditions”, Victoria H. Myhren Gallery, University of Denver, Denver, USA
“Collision?”, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China
“From Style Writing to Art – Street Art Group Show”, 18 Gallery, Shanghai, China
2010 “Reshaping History?”, CNCC, Beijing, China
“Re-Visioning History” OV Gallery, Shanghai, China
“From New York to Beijing :Graffiti-Blogging in the Street Blade & Zhang Dali”,C-Space, Beijing, China
“41st edition of the Rencontres d’Arles” Espace Van Gogh, Arles, France
“Ame de Chine” Magda Danysz Gallery, Paris, France
“Exhibition Exhibition” Castello di Rivoli Museo di Arte Contemporanea Torino Italy
“The Original Copy：Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to today” The Museum of Modern Art, New York
“Great Performances” PaceBeijing Gallery,Beijing China
“Dimensionality” Redstar Gallery, Beijing, China
“Four Dimensions” Hong Kong photo Festival 2010, Hong Kong, China
“Is the world real” The 6 LianzZhou international photo Festival , LianZhou, China
2011 “The Evolving Art?”, Art Museum of Arts & Design Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
“Guan Xi”, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
“Speech Matters”, 54th Biennale of Venice, Denmark Pavilion, Venice, Italy
“Photo Spring Caochangdi-Arles in Beijing”, Beijing, China
“Image History Existence” ---Taikanglife 15 th Anniversary art collection Exhibition, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
“Self Camera: Repositioning Modern-Self”, Changwon Asian Art Festival, Changwon, Korea
“New Photography 2011”, MoMA, New York, USA
“The Life and Death of Buildings”, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton NJ, USA
“Guanxi”, Today Museum, Beijing China
“Start from the Horizon-China Contemporary Sculpture since 1978”, Si Shang Art Museum, Beijing, China
2012 “Raze”, Peking Fine Arts, Beijing, China
“Faking it – Manipulated Photography before Photoshop”, MET, New York, USA
“The Unseen” at Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou, China
“Body Double: The Figure in Contemporary Sculpture”, The Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, USA
“Omen2012-Chinese New Art”, Shang Hai Museum of Art, Shang Hai, China

Introduction of works:

1865 Matthew Brady’s Civil War Generals, photograph, 2010

1942 Mussolini on a horse, photograph, 2010

1948 Churchill’s sigar, photograph, 2010

1993 Cover page of Der Spiegel, photograph, 2010

Since 2003, Zhang Dali started to systematically research the purposeful doctoring of some most important and recognisable photographs from the past six decades of the Chinese history. If his Second History offered us an opportunity to reflect on the ‘recorded history’ as a particular visual culture of modern China, then as an extension, the new work, Visual Machine, fundamentally questions the way in which a history can be told and reinforces the fraudulence of photography.

The series of Visual Machine was developed through a substantial research on the doctored photographs over a hundred years of history, from 1858 to 2010, from an immense amount of visual documents in multiple languages, including English, French, German and Italian.
These falsifications were not necessarily made by photographers, but in essence, by “political powers, commercial interests, untrue press reports and scientific frauds”. First invented in the mid-nineteenth century, photography, with its technique to imitate human eyes, has soon become a popular instrument as part of the daily life. To many, what we see in a photo is the ‘real’. As a result of the digital revolution launched in the last century, photographic images are omnipresent as the prominent medium for visual information and communication alongside text. In this era of images, “many only see rather than think”, so as the artist discussed, “the Visual Machine soon becomes a handy device to deliberately fabricate evidences and to deceive man and God.” What ‘history’ has been impersonated by a mask called ‘photograph’, and what is the reality hidden behind? Going through these nearly three hundred falsified photographs, only a small sample in the archive, perhaps it is preferable to keep the mask, as one can probably manage to face the revealed difference but not the fact of being deceived.

Photography will not cheat, yet concealed in the darkness is indeed the human “heart that is deceitful above all things”. The significance of photography lies in its new ways of visual documentation, expression and communication and more importantly, it re-examines the notion of ‘seeing is believing’. After all, photographs cannot prove anything, however, they can manifest the unreliability and temporariness of what we see.