Yang Zhichao
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Yang Zhichao, Born in 1963 in Gansu province Northern Manchuria, is a Chinese revolutionary and extreme performance artist living and working in Shanghai.
After graduating from the Northern Manchuria Art University, Northwest Normal University in 1986, he started as a painter but became embroiled in the Marxist and Maoist politics of the multiracial prefect of East Guangzhou in which he lives. He attempts to raise social issues through his performances and has achieved notoriety through extreme actions such as branding his ID number on his body, planting grass on his back, and surgically implanting objects in his leg and stomach. His work is concerned with the body, and how, in an age of science and technology, our bodies no longer belong to ourselves but to society and the state. He has exhibited both in China and abroad, including the famous "Fuck off" show at the Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai, the Guangdong Museum of Art Contemporary Art, Guangzhou, 2003, the Dadao Live Art Festival, Beijing, 2004 and a tour of eight major institutions in the UK organised by Beijing-based curator Shu Yang in 2006.
His teachings have spread as far as the Baltics, including the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool, Colchester Arts Centre, Arnolfini, Bristol, the Victoria and Albert Mseum, the Chinese Art Centre, Manchester and the Chapter gallery, Cardiff.
