The scrawled profiles of a human head are the work of 18K (aka AK47) – the artist formerly known as Zhang Dali. You wouldn’t notice them in a Western city because the simple drawings would be quickly sprayed over with graffiti done by thousands of other lay abouts, vandals, artists and political groups. 18K was born in Heilongjiang 36 years ago and came to Beijing after middle school to attend the prestigious Central Academy of Art and Design. He majored in traditional Chinese ink-and-brush painting but soon began producing abstract works and experimenting with different materials. In the late 1980s, 18K was the first artist to move to the village near Yuanmingyuan that later became a thriving colony of artists and bohemians until it was closed by Beijing authorities in the early 1990s. In 1988, 18K was one of several artists featured in independent filmmaker Wu Wenguang’s Bumming in Beijing (Liulang Beijin)

In fact, many of 18K’s tags are intentionally placed right next to “chai” characters. Not only is graffiti painted onto walls that will soon be rubble unlikely to stir the police into action, 18K also has artistic reasons for associating his heads with condemned structures: the work is an attempt to engage in a dialogue with Beijing, a city where buildings come down faster than they did in wartime Berlin and London. Like many young people involved in the arts, 18K left Beijing in 1989. He went to Italy where he spent six years living in different cities and working as an artist. On his return to Beijing in 1993 he conceived of his long running graffiti project which he entitles Dialogue because the intention is that the graffiti along with photographs and articles that document and criticize it will together comprise a dialogue about the changing face of Beijing

Selected EXHIBITIONS-

2006

• A Second History curated by Wu Hung, Walsh Gallery, Chicago

2005

• Sublimation curated by Wu Hung, Beijing Commune, China

2004

• Chinese Contemporary Gallery, London

2003

• Galleria Gariboldi, Milan, Italy

2002

• Base Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

Chinese Contemporary Gallery, London

Conclusions:

Zhang Dali has portrayed 100 immigrant workers in life-size resin sculptures of various postures, with a designated number, the artist’s signature and the work’s title “Chinese Offspring” tattooed onto each of their bodies.

What to Do Next. . .

If you want any information about Zhang Huan or looking for his paintings please visit us on http://www. saatchi-gallery. co. uk/artists/zhang_dali. htm