Zhang Peili
born 1957, in Zhejiang, China; lives and works in Hangzhou, China
Zhang Peili, a conceptual artist and art educator, is acknowledged as the “father of Chinese video art.” In the 1980s he was a founding member of the avant-garde artist collective Pond Society, based in Hangzhou. Like many of his generation, Zhang’s formal training was in painting; he earned an MFA from the China Academy of Arts in Hangzhou in 1984. However, a few years later, he began experimenting with video, initially as a way to record his durational performances. His work explores concepts of time and issues relating to societal changes in China.
