Zhang lives and works in Shanghai. A multi-disciplinary artist, his practice utilizes various media, including photography, installation, sculpture and painting. After nearly 10 years in New York City, where he became famous for provocative performances that subjected his own body to challenging tests of endurance, Zhang returned to Shanghai in 2005 and shifted to an object-based practice. 

In Spring 2014, Zhang Huan was awarded “Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur” by the French government in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the inheritance and communication of Chinese culture and the promotion of French-Chinese cultural and artistic exchanges.

Zhang Huan has held many solo exhibitions in New York, London, Toronto, Florence, Berlin, Milan,
Sydney, and Shanghai. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions, biennials and events in
venues such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2015), Centre Georges Pompidou (2014), Gwangju Biennale (2013), 55th Venice Art Biennale (2013), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2013), Shanghai Art Museum (2012), Expo Shanghai（2010), the Guggenheim Museum Museum of Modern Art (2010), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2008). The Lyric opera Semele, for which Zhang Huan works as director and set designer, has made its world tour in Brussels, Beijing, Toronto and New York.

Collections of Zhang Huan’s art can be found in the contemporary art museums of major cities all over
the world, as well as in the collections of art foundations, including the New York Museum of Modern
Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, Illinois, the Pompidou Center in Paris, the Shanghai Art
Museum, and Palazzo Vecchio and Forte di Belvedere in Florence, Italy, with nearly a hundred institutions hosting public collections.